#PLEASE SAY I DONT HAVE TO WAIT UNTIL NEXT YEAR FOR NEWS

[jasperscringepit]

This is just cruel now,,,

[asahicore]

bad news first - sjy (m)

this work contains smut - minors please do not interact pairing. jake x fem!reader synopsis. From the moment you'd met at eight to the day he moved to South Korea at fourteen, you and Jake were inseparable. But after years of being apart, you've come to terms with the fact that at twenty, you and Jake just aren't what you used to be. That is until you get a text from him, and all of a sudden, he's back by your side, doing his year abroad at the university you study at, and all your feelings for him float back up to the surface. genre. college au, childhood friends to ???? to lovers, painful mutual pining, one bed trope..... a sprinkle of angst (my hand slipped) but mostly fluff i promise and smut (mdni!!!), also i made sunghoon really weird in this and idkw, this is set in scotland.. edinburgh uni rep!! word count. 23k author's note. everybody say happy belated birthday to @zreamy.. happy belated birthday zo!!! being 22 years and 6 days old is cooler than just 22 years old anyway.. hope you like it bestie... if you dont... well theres a building on campus thats 17 stories high sooo.. enjoy! i hope everyone else enjoys too, since this is a bday fic for zo she couldnt beta read so i had to raw dog this so if its terrible.. not my fault! lmk what u think!! i also made a playlist for this, do listen along!!

“Alright kids, good news or bad news first?”

You looked at your teacher, then at the boy next to you, then back at your teacher. “Bad news first,” you said in unison.

You were only eight, but you were both wise enough to know that hearing good news second would assuage the blow of whatever these bad news were. Miss Dawson sighed as she crouched in front of you. “The bad news is your bus driver is on strike and won’t be coming. The good news is that your parents have been informed and are coming to pick you up soon.”

Following her instructions, you headed to the gymnasium and sat there silently among the other kids. Not many kids in your class rode the bus home, and the ones who did seemed to have drivers not on strike, so it was just the two of you. You were used to that, though - over January and February, you had made a sort of silent pact to stand and wait for the bus together. You sometimes shared snacks, but you never spoke. For some reason, you felt at ease with this boy, even though you didn’t know much about him. You had heard he had moved to Brisbane just at the start of this year, all the way from South Korea. You were pretty sure his name was Jake.

You handed him one of your Twix bars. Then he spoke. “I thought a strike was when you did really well in bowling.”

“Same,” you replied, mouth full of chocolate and caramel. “I’m not sure why that would keep the bus driver from picking us up.”

Jake looked at you with wide eyes, distress clear in them. “Do you think he went bowling instead of picking us up?”

This made you frown. “That’d be really rude.”

“It would. I always make sure to go bowling on the weekends, ‘cause if I missed school that’d be rude to Miss Dawson.”

You nodded your head in fervent agreement. “For sure.”

That weekend, his mum called your mum to ask if you wanted to go to the bowling alley with them. From then on, for the next six years, you were stuck together by glue. 

--

Twelve years later, Jake’s name appearing on your phone screen has become such a rare sight, you don’t believe it right away. It takes you a few seconds of intense squinting at the letters to actually realise your eyes aren’t deceiving you.

jake.sim15 hey y/n!! you go to edinburgh uni right?

You type and delete three different responses before settling for a simple yeah, I am! what’s up?, hoping you sounded nonchalant even though you very much felt chalant. You thought that whatever you sent wouldn’t be as weird as taking forever to answer such a straightforward question. 

As you wait for Jake’s reply, you scroll through your previous shared messages, noting with sadness that for three years in a row, the only instances you’d texted were to wish each other a happy birthday or when he reacted with a fire emoji to Stories of your dog, Milo. Before that, your last conversation was to congratulate each other about getting into your top choice universities and to discuss plans for your respective futures.

Futures that used to include each other, you think. His reply appears at the bottom of your screen before melancholy can fill your heart.

jake.sim15 i applied to go there for my year abroad next year annnnd i got in !! heh

You shoot up straight from your seat on the lounge chaise you’d been sunbathing on, a loud “Oh my God!” involuntarily escaping your mouth. 

“What? What happened? Is everything okay?” Chaewon asks frantically, rushing over to your side. “Oh,” she says when she sees your phone. “It’s a text… from a boy?” 

This makes Yunjin, previously unbothered by your panic, rise from her seat and take off her sunglasses. “A boy? Show me,” she demands, snatching your phone from your hands before you can protest. Upon seeing the texts on your screen, she lets out a loud gasp. “It’s not just any boy! It’s the one and only Jake Sim himself.”

“Give that back!” you plead, hand reaching for your phone, but Yunjin is already walking away.

“And he’s coming to Edi this September, apparently. He says he’s sorry for not saying anything earlier, but he was waiting for an answer up until now.” She scoffs. “Leave it to our uni to tell someone they’re in less than two months before term starts. Oh, you’re the first person he’s told, Y/N! After his parents. How cute,” she coos, protesting when you snatch your phone back from her. “Hey! I was reading that.”

“Those are my texts, Yunjin. I’m the one who’s meant to read them.”

She shrugs. “You would’ve told us anyway.”

“What are you going to reply?” Chaewon asks. With the both of them hovering over your shoulders and watching as you type a response, a sort of stage fright comes over you, making you send what might be the most unoriginal reply known to man.

“Awesome? Seriously, Y/N?” Yunjin reads, disproportionately disgusted with you.

“That’s a lot of exclamation marks. It almost makes it look like you don’t mean it,” Chaewon says.

“I do mean it!”

“Well, he seems to like it. A smiling-with-teeth emoji is a good sign, right?” she asks in an attempt to make you feel better.

“He has automatic caps off. That man is run-through,” Yunjin says, shaking her head as she walks back to her sunbed.

“You were excited about him texting me just a second ago,” you reproach.

“Yeah, before I found out he was a whore.”

“Yunjin, you know we don't slut-shame here!” Chaewon exclaims. Before Yunjin can say anything even worse in response, your phone starts ringing, and Jake’s name appears on your screen. “He’s calling you?” Chaewon gasps, making Yunjin sit up with a start for the second time in less than five minutes.

“This man is insane,” she remarks with all the seriousness in the world.

You run away from your friends, finding refuge in the outside kitchen area out of earshot. They don’t need to hear your conversation with Jake. You love them, but they can be weirdly unsupportive in moments like these.

“Hey, Jake,” you greet, hoping he doesn’t notice the breathlessness in your voice. It was because you had just ran, of course - you didn’t want him to think you were so nervous about talking to him after such a long time, you could barely breathe. Because you weren’t. At all.

“Hey, Y/N!” he replies, and the excitement in his voice makes your heart melt. “I hope it’s not weird that I called, I just thought it’d be nicer than texting, is that okay?”

“Yeah, it’s fine, it’s nice to hear your voice,” you say before you can really think about it, and cringe at your own words. Years without talking and the world’s worst line is the first thing you say to Jake. Thankfully, before you start excruciating yourself, a chuckle pours out of Jake’s throat and blesses your ears.

“It’s nice to hear your voice, too. What are you up to?” 

“Oh, I’m on vacation with my friends. One of them has a rich aunt who owns a villa in southern Italy, so we’re just chilling by the pool right now.” 

“You always wanted to go to Italy! That sounds so nice,” he says. Your breath catches gently in your throat - he remembers, you note.

“Yeah, it really is. What about you, how are you spending the summer?”

Jake tells you about the local bookstore owned by a grandpa that’s always had a soft spot for him and that gave him a part-time job for the summer. “I’m trying to save up as much money as I can before I leave. If I treat you to a meal, will you show me around the city?” he asks, and you can hear the grin in his voice. It makes you realise how much you’ve actually missed him.

“You don’t need to treat me to a meal, I’ll show you around anyway.” 

Still, he insists, and you find yourself giving in quickly - because it’s Jake or because free food is on the table, you’re not sure. Probably both. 

You and Jake get to talking, but fitting years and years of catching up into one conversation is an impossible task, and before you know it, when you check your phone, you’ve been talking for over an hour. Yunjin is angrily waving at you, pointing at her stomach to indicate hunger like a caveman who’s just learned how to communicate. You apologise to Jake, telling him you have to go, and plan to meet during fresher’s week before you hang up.

A few hours later, you get a text from him saying it was nice talking to you and jokingly asking whether Yunjin was satisfied with lunch. It’s innocuous, but it opens a gate for more texting, which leads to long, rambling voice messages, which leads to late-night phone calls that remind you of when you were fifteen and still kept in touch. When August fades into September, you feel like you’ve got your best friend back. 

You remember why you were so in love with him at fourteen.

--

You see Jake before he sees you.  

Among the throngs of people, you manage to spot the dark, messy flop of hair on his head weighed down by a nice pair of wireless headphones. After a thirteen-hour flight from Seoul, a four-hour layover in Frankfurt and a final, two-hour flight to Edinburgh, he looks rightfully exhausted, using what looks like the last of his energy to spot the exit and the airport bus stop. Even wearing a simple denim jacket, white tee and grey sweatpants, he’s so gorgeous you forget what you came here for, until he almost walks right past you without seeing you. You put yourself in his path and hold your hand-written banner up, making yourself as obvious as you can as you call out his name. 

When he sees you, he stops dead in his tracks for a second, someone almost running into him before he remembers the crowd behind him. His tired features break out into a bright smile that has your heartbeat speeding up so much, you think it might run out of your chest. 

He had told you not to come, that it would be late for you and he didn’t want to bother you, but you had managed to get the information of his arrival before he forbade you from picking him up so you did it anyway, wanting to surprise him. After years of being apart, rather than waiting another day, you wanted to see him as soon as possible.

Jake briskly makes his way to you, dropping his bags next to him on the floor as he engulfs you in a hug, warm and tight as if he’s trying to make up for all those years. You hug him back as if someone would appear out of thin air and take him away from you again.

“This was the longest day of my life, I’m so happy to see you,” he says when he pulls away, and you’re so happy you can’t even say anything back, resorting to giggling and lightly swatting non-existent dust off of his shoulders. 

As you wait for the bus, he tells you about every trivial thing that happened to him on his trip, from how expensive a sandwich is at the airport to the German kid sitting in front of him that kept turning around to stare at him on his second flight.

“How did you know he was German?” you ask, amused.

Jake pauses. “Just vibes.”

Conversation on the bus is slightly disjointed as you jump from topic to topic with random pauses here and there before one of you finds something to talk about - but it’s okay, you hadn’t expected for the two of you to be as easy as before. It’s more awe at seeing each other after such a long time than awkwardness. Even though you’d caught up over summer, there was a world of difference between speaking on the phone and actually sitting next to him. You notice things like the shine of his hair, the creases that form on the sides of his lips when he smiles, or, unfortunately for you, the veins that run along his forearms and hands - things you hadn’t noticed previously thanks to the sometimes questionable quality of the front camera of his phone. Once in a while, your thigh brushes against his, and it reminds you that he’s really here. Even that he’s real, at all. 

In a tragic turn of events, Jake lives in the student accommodation you used to live in in first year, and coming back to it two years later is slightly traumatising. His three-person flat is in a different building as your old one, and you marvel at how it somehow still smells the same - like dusty, decade-old carpeting and the permanent stench of students’ dubitable cooking. He’s the first one to move in, which makes the place slightly eerie, but it means that you’re not bothering anyone by unpacking Jake’s stuff and cooking Shin Ramyun the previous tenants had left behind at 11pm. 

Your late dinner was meant for you to take a small break, watch a couple episodes of Friends which Jake had been shocked to learn you’d never watched, and you had been shocked to learn he was a die-hard fan of (since one year ago), then get back to unpacking. But the ramen sends an already exhausted Jake into a food coma so intense, he falls asleep on your shoulder five minutes into the second episode. 

You let him sleep as long as he needs, turning the volume down on his laptop and stifling your chuckles as much as you can. You feel like a cat has fallen asleep in your lap - you are now obliged by law to stay still until Jake wakes up. It’s not until an hour later that Jake’s uncomfortable sleeping position forces him awake, lifting his head off of your shoulder with a grunt. He looks around himself, at his room that’s not quite familiar to him yet, then at you, eyes still scrunched with sleepiness as a grin blooms onto his lips.

“Sorry,” clearing his throat of its grogginess. “What time is it?”

“It’s almost one a.m,” you reply, and his eyes go wide.

“You should’ve woken me up! Does your shoulder hurt?” he asks, much more alarmed than he should be, and it makes you laugh.

“It’s all good. But now that you’re awake, I should probably head home.” 

“I’ll get you an Uber,” he says, already pulling out his phone. 

“It’s fine, Jake, my place is a ten-minute walk from here. I live just up the road.”

Jake’s fingers on his phone pause as he looks up at you. “Then I’ll walk you home.” He lifts a finger in warning when he sees you start to protest. “And don’t fight me on this. You did so much today, it’s the least I can do.”

As much as you love the idea of spending more time with Jake, even if it’s just ten minutes, you still don’t want to bother him when you know how tired he is. “It’s really safe around here. I can just text you when I’m home, if you’re worried about me getting kidnapped or something,” you say, taking his jacket from his hands and placing it back on his desk chair.

He grabs it back, putting it on before you can take it from him again, and rummages through one of his suitcases for a black, woolly scarf. Neither of you speaks as he wraps it tight around your neck, even though the early September weather isn’t cold enough to warrant it. His hands stop briefly on the scarf and a small smile spreads on his lips. You hope he doesn’t hear your sharp intake of breath when your eyes meet. “It’s not about that,” he says simply, voice low and unlike you’ve ever heard it before. You don’t think his voice had quite finished cracking when he’d moved away back then. 

Suddenly, he steps away, grabs his keys, and heads for the door. “Let’s go!” he says, voice back to its usual cheery tone. You don’t find it in you to question him, so you just follow him out, welcoming the night breeze that cools down your burning cheeks with open arms. 

The walk to your place is mostly done in comfortable silence, but it still goes by too quickly for your liking. You keep your hands in your pockets to prevent yourself from doing something stupid, like reaching out for Jake’s hand that swishes back-and-forth as he walks. Instead, you bury your nose in his scarf and relish in the unfamiliar but comforting smell that his cologne has left behind on the fabric. You hug goodbye when you reach your flat, and you have to remind yourself to let go. He insists on you keeping the scarf. “My mum packed me, like, three, so you can have that one.” 

“Your mum still pack your things for you, does she?” you ask, tone playful.

“No-” he says, voice slightly whiny, before he realises you’re just teasing him. “Whatever,” he chuckles, ruffling your hair. You hope the streetlights aren’t bright enough for him to notice the flustered look on your face. The both of you stand there awkwardly for a second, before he lets out another chuckle. “Right. See you tomorrow?”

“Yeah,” you beam.

“Okay,” he says, but still doesn’t make a move to leave. “Okay. Yeah. I’ll be off then.” He gives you one last smile then turns around, burying his hands in his pockets, and you watch as he walks away.

“Get home safe,” you call out after a few seconds. 

He pivots on his heels, and, with a wave of his hand, says, “I will! Go inside.”

“Good night!”

“Night, Y/N!”

When you walk into your living room, Yunjin is sitting on the couch, arms crossed over her chest, gaze trained on the wall opposite her, one lamp lighting the otherwise completely dark room. She looks like a detective in one of those bad cop shows.

“Gosh, what’s all this for?”

“You’re back awfully late,” she says, neither looking at you nor answering your question.

“Yeah, I was with Jake,” you shrug, heading into the kitchen for a glass of water. She abruptly gets up from her seat, following you into the other room and staying close behind you.

“And?” she demands, mouth way too close to your ear and making you start.

“And what?” you ask. 

“What do you mean and what?!” she says, clearly agitated. “I want to know everything!”

“There’s nothing to say, really. He seemed happy I picked him up from the airport, then I helped him unpack. He lives in Riego, by the way.”

“Ew.”

“I know, it was awful going back there.”

The two of you stare at each other as you drink your water. “Well?” she asks.

“What?”

“Is that it?”

You fill your glass again to take it into your bedroom. “I don’t know, we just ate and watched Friends.”

“You hate shows with laughing tracks,” she states like it’s an accusation.

“It wasn’t actually that bad,” you reply, shrugging.

She tuts. “Love will do ugly, ugly things to a person.”

“You’ve been in a loving relationship for the past two years.”

“This isn’t about me. Can we talk about how you’re still in love with the same loser from when you were ten?”

“I was fourteen, and don’t call Jake a loser when you haven’t even met him.” You ignore the roll of her eyes. “And I’m not. Not anymore. I’m just happy to have my friend back.” Yunjin gives you a look. “Okay, maybe I’m still a little bit in love with him. But it’s so little, it’s barely there.” Her expression is unchangingly unimpressed and you can’t help but throw in the towel. “Alright, fine. I still love him, what about it?”

“You’re pathetic.”

“I know that, no need to remind me.”

“Are you gonna do something about it?”

“My patheticness? I’ve tried, didn’t really work.”

“No, idiot, about Jake. You should go and get him! It’d be so sexy if you got together as 20-somethings after knowing each other since you were babies.”

“We were eight when we met. And I don’t know if sexy is the word I’d use here.”

“Anything is sexy if you try hard enough,” she says, and you have to laugh. “Anyways, you should confess your undying love and tell him you’ve felt that way since you met.”

“I wasn’t-”

“Guys might not show it, but they probably get all hot for stuff like that. Boosts their ego and shit.”

“Yunjin, I just got my friend back, I’m not gonna risk it. Plus, who knows, I might not actually be in love with him. It might just be my emotions acting up, like, seeing someone I used to like after a while. We’ve both changed so much, once I get to know him more now, I might not even feel the way I used to.”

“Notice how you’ve used the word might twice in ten seconds? You’re just trying to find excuses.”

You groan. “This is why I hate English Lit people.”

“You do English Lit.”

“I know, and I’m the only nice person that does it.” In your head, you add and Jake, but saying it out loud would only make this conversation worse for you.

“What’s that scarf, by the way? Did he give you that?”

You look down at the scarf like it’s a piece of incriminating evidence. “Can you stop grilling me, please? It’s late.”

“You’re not answering my question.”

You sighed deeply. “Fine. Yes, he gave me-”

“It’s not even that cold outside!” she exclaimed in an outrage. “Don’t tell me he also walked you home?”

You pause. “He did.”

She gasped. “He walked you home because he’s in love with you.”

“He walked me home because he’s a good friend that looks after me.”

“He walked you home because he realised how hot you’ve gotten and he wants some of that.”

All you can do is sigh. “Whatever. I’m going to bed.”

“If you weren’t such a coward, you wouldn’t be going to bed alone.”

“Whatever!” you say, shutting the door behind you, shaking that preposterous conversation out of your head. When you get into bed, it takes you at least half-an-hour before you can settle down, but you know your constant tossing and turning isn’t due to your inability to find a comfortable enough position to sleep in. Between your evening with Jake and Yunjin’s pestering, thoughts run wild and incoherent through your head. 

You want to tell her every little thing that happened with Jake tonight, but you’re afraid it might do you more harm than good. She is most definitely the type of friend who will take the smallest action a guy did for you or the most meaningless thing he might have said and turn it into a sign that he has the hots for you, which usually does wonders for your confidence, but right now, you don’t need that kind of delusion. Did seeing your childhood best friend you used to secretly harbour feelings for make you feel some type of way? Of course, but that doesn’t mean you still love him after all this time, after six years of being apart, the majority of those years spent with no contact. It wasn’t like you parted ways with resentment, or anything of that sort, far from it; rather, you drifted apart naturally, as two teenagers with over 7000 kilometres between them would. At first, you’d call frequently and even write each other letters - but as you became more preoccupied with school, friends, and extracurriculars, your phones gradually rang less and your mailboxes became gradually emptier. You don’t even remember who sent the last, unanswered letter. 

Tonight isn’t the first time you replay the moment Jake announced that he would go away, but it’s the first time it’s a bittersweet memory. It used to only be bitter - but now that you’ve reconnected, you can look back at it with fondness, wishing you could tell fourteen-year-old you the hurt would only last so long. 

It hadn’t started unusually.

“So, bad news first, right?”

In your six years of friendship with Jake, this had been the first time you’d really been wary of what he would say next. The look on his face told you that this bad news wouldn’t be as easy to shake off as usual. Your definition of bad news was things like I got grounded so I can’t hang out, I forgot we had a test tomorrow so I can’t hang out, my allergies are acting up again so I can’t hang out.

“I’m moving to Korea next month.”

I’m on another continent, so I can’t hang out.

You remember the words not quite making sense at the time. “Oh? How long are you staying there?” you said, taking a bite of your strawberry ice cream which Jake had insisted on paying for, even though you knew he didn’t get much allowance.

“Forever.”

You stopped chewing, and the ice cream melted uncomfortably in your mouth. You don’t know how long you stayed there, frozen as you stared at your best friend in disbelief. It wasn’t until he lightly shoved your shoulder, only meeting your eyes for a split second, that you remembered to swallow and to say something.

“Forever as in… You won’t live here anymore? At all?”

Jake shook his head. He kept his eyes trained on the vanilla-chocolate ice cream sandwich he’d left in its wrapper. In the blazing hot Brisbane summer, it had probably fully melted two minutes ago. “At all.”

“Oh,” was all you found yourself able to say. For some reason, you hoped that continuing to eat your ice cream would stop you from crying, but to no avail. Hot, salty tears quickly started raining down your cheeks, mixing with the sweetness of your ice cream when they reached your lips. 

“It’s my dad’s work. Same reason why I moved here when we were kids in the first place. They wanted him here then, they want him back there now. We just have to follow,” Jake explained, sounding just as upset as you felt.

“Right.”

“Are you mad at me?” Jake asked, worry clear in his voice, and finally turned to face you. At the sight of you crying, he let out a small oh, tears of his own pooling in his eyes.

You frowned. “Of course not. I’m never mad at you, you know that. I just… You’re my best friend, Jakey. It’s gonna be so lame around here without you.”

“It’ll be lame there without you, too.”

You attempted a smile. “Well, of course. But at least you’ll get to make new friends, see new places. You’ll be in a whole other country, I’m sure you’ll have fun there. I’m gonna be stuck in boring old Brisbane for the foreseeable future.”

“Do you know how offended our friends would be if they heard you speaking right now?” he asked, nudging your shoulder with his.

You sniffled and let out a chuckle. “They’re all great, but… I don’t like them nearly as much as I like you,” you said, staring down at your hands, hoping he wouldn’t realise exactly what you meant by that statement.

A weight was lifted off of your shoulders when Jake answered. “I like you the most too, Y/N.” You tried not to think too much about whether he’d meant it platonically or romantically - none of that mattered anymore. All that mattered was the feeling of his arms around you, his warmth enveloping your whole body, his familiar scent that you already missed. 

You felt him take a deep breath against you before he pulled away. He sniffled and did his best to put on a smile. “Right, enough of that. I’m not leaving until next month, so don’t think you’re rid of me just yet,” he joked, and it helped alleviate the weight on your heart, even if just a little. “You said you had something to tell me? Good news after bad news, and all that.”

“Oh. Right. I forgot about that.”

You thought for a second. Today was the day you had planned to confess your feelings to Jake - you’d only told him you had good news to share. But what was the point now that he was leaving? If he felt the same way, it would only make his departure that much harder, and if he didn’t, it would ruin your last moments together. It just wasn’t worth it.

Jake tilted his head, waiting for you to speak. In a split second, you made yourself forget your disappointment over having built the courage to tell him how you felt only for it all to fall through, and resolved to make the most of Jake’s last month here. You wiped your tears and mirrored his small smile as best you could. “Um, it wasn’t anything much. My mum made those cowboy cookies you like.”

Jake’s head fell back as he groaned in anticipation. “If she wasn’t happily married with three kids, I’d marry your mum. Let’s go right now.”

You laughed. “There’d be a bit of an age gap there.”

“We’d make it work,” Jake joked, throwing his arm around your shoulders as you walked towards your house. He beamed down at you, his bright, boyish smile that you loved to bits, and you beamed up at him as you grabbed the hand that hung off your shoulder in your own.

You walked as happily as you could. “Do you even speak Korean?” you suddenly asked.

Jake halted abruptly in his steps, a gravely offended look on his face. When you looked back at him in confusion, he rolled his eyes and started walking again, pulling you with him. “It’s literally my mother tongue, Y/N. I speak it every day at home.”

“Oh, right.”

At the time, you thought nothing could come between you and Jake. Not anyone, not anything, neither distance nor time. But they did. A week after he’d left, a boy from your class you’d talked to maybe once or twice asked you out on a date. You weren’t sure why, but you said yes. Then you said yes to being his girlfriend, even though you didn’t like him all that much, and you even said yes to reducing your texting with Jake because it made him jealous. When you’d broken up with him and wanted to catch up with Jake and apologise for your absence, you’d found that his new school in Seoul was a lot more demanding than yours in Brisbane, and he had to spend most of his evenings in academies if he wanted to get into a nice university. It’s when you learned that he’d be staying in South Korea for college that you decided to leave Australia too. Brisbane was a lot less fun without him there - why bother staying? You couldn’t go to him because of the language barrier and the cost of university there. If you were to essentially uproot your life, might as well go somewhere you could get a scholarship and understand the people around you. 

It seemed insane that someone you had thought would be by your side for the rest of your life, someone that was part of your most cherished memories, had been reduced to someone you casually texted once in a while. It seems even more insane that now that you’re finally done essentially grieving your friendship with Jake, he stands in front of you again, six inches taller but still donning those puppy-like eyes and smile of his.

For your sake, you just hoped you wouldn’t be as in love with him at twenty as you were at fourteen.

--

The next day, you show Jake around campus, which wouldn’t normally take more than ten minutes, but takes double that time because of the sheer amount of people there. Between the Societies Fair taking up most of the square, the tour guides leading freshers, walking slowly and taking in their new campus, and the pizza and drinks stands, freshers’ week always turns campus into what feels like the busiest place on Earth. You try not to let it hit a nerve for Jake’s sake, who’s clearly ecstatic at all the activity, but you like this place a lot more when it’s quieter. You walk through the Fair, laughing as Jake marvels at all the different clubs and societies at the Uni. 

“Gardening Society? Dungeons & Dragons Society? Wine society?” he exclaims, astonishment growing with every passing stand.

“And this is only the first day. They also have a Taylor Swift Society.” He grabs a flyer from about every society, even though you know he’ll join between two to zero of them. 

When you walk out, there’s a girl handing out samples of shampoo and conditioner, and you let her give you one, more out of politeness than anything. 

“These are so useless,” you start, and Jake chuckles, unaware of the incoming rant. “I had that job of distributing them last year, and we would get a tip if we gave them all out. So naturally I put a bunch in my bag, but then I had to use them for like two weeks.” You sigh. “First of all, my hair did not like it. And second, the ratio is so off. There’s way more conditioner than shampoo when it should be the other way around, so you have to condition your hair even though it’s not properly clean. So stupid.”

“Sounds terrible,” Jake says, laughing. “Is that why you’re not doing it this year?”

“Oh… Not really. I dated the guy that takes care of this promo stuff, so it would’ve been kinda awkward…” you trail, immediately wishing you could backtrack on conversation. Talking about your ex with Jake wasn’t on your to-do list for today. Or ever.

“You dated your boss?”

“The manager, yeah, I guess. He was only 24, though, don’t worry.”

“I’m more worried about the power imbalance than the age gap there.”

You shrug, looking down at your shoes. “It’s not like he was that high up.”

“So, what happened? Why did you break up?”

“Well, he acted like our four-year age difference meant he could treat me like a little kid. It was nice being taken care of at first but then I realised how condescending he was and dumped him.”

“How long were you together?”

You pause. “Two weeks,” you admit abashedly, making Jake chuckle. “At least he didn’t waste my time and showed his red flags early on.”

“Any boyfriends since?” he asks, and you wonder whether you’re making up the unsure tone of his voice. As if he’s curious, but doesn’t want to show it too much. You hope you’re not making it up.

“A few, but they never last very long with me,” you say, a meek smile on your lips. “Furthest I got was three months.”

“And why didn’t it work out with three-months-guy?”

“He started comparing me to his mum a bit too often.”

“Ouch.”

“Yeah, I ran out of there without looking back.”

“Well, it’s nice to see you’ve got high standards. I would hate to see you date just any loser.”

You want to say, High standards or issues?, but you don’t want to make it weird, so you play it cool instead. “I would never. I have a mental checklist with everything a guy needs to have for me to date him.”

“A checklist? I have to hear about this.”

You sigh, debating whether you should tell him about it. Would he notice it’s based on him? Would he notice the only person that could tick practically every box was none other than him? Jake gently elbows your side, goading you on. When you look at him, he’s got a shit-eating grin playing on his lips, and you give in. You look off into the distance as you start listing your requirements. “Well, there’s all your basics like funny, taller than me but not too much, ‘cause I don’t want neck cramps, smart, takes uni seriously, has plans for his future, easy to talk to, not emotionally stunted and can actually have a vulnerable conversation. It’s also a bonus if he has a nice face.”

“How much of a bonus?”

You think for a second. “It’s more a dealbreaker than a bonus, actually. Nice smile is a must, definitely.”

“Okay. Got any more specifics?”

“I do have some particular ones. It’s nice if he’s a reader, but it’s terrible if it makes him think he’s better than everyone or if he tries to sound smarter than me. I like it if he has experience, I don’t want to have to teach him everything. But obviously I don’t want him to still be in love with his ex. Guys and their first loves, I swear… I also don’t really like picky eaters.” You look over at Jake and take a double-take. He’s typing away on his phone, but because of his privacy screen protector, you can’t see anything. You huff. “I also don’t like it if he has those protective screens on his phone. What’s on there that’s so important that I can’t take a peek? What are you even doing?”

The sweet sound of Jake’s giggles erases any trace of annoyance that you felt seconds ago. He turns his screen towards you, showing the list of mostly ticked boxes that he’s written up. “See? I check most of these,” he says with a proud smile. “Guess your standards aren’t that high.” You don’t tell him that your standards are high, he’s just that amazing. 

You do your best to look only amused at this even though inside, you’re all but freaking out. “Which are you missing?”

“Well, I clearly own a privacy screen. And I don’t have much experience. Not nearly as much as you, by the sounds of it,” he admits, somewhat sheepish. “But other than that, I’m practically the perfect man for you.” He looks down at you with a smile so bright, it makes you wish you had brought sunglasses. It takes everything in you not to scream right then and there. Yes, Jake, you are the perfect man for me, but I wish you wouldn’t say it like it was a joke.

You let out a stiff chuckle, and, rather than saying something stupid and possibly damaging, shift the conversation to him. “What do you mean by not much experience? Have you not dated anyone?”

Jake sighs. “Nope, not anyone. I went on a few dates, you know, went through a few talking stages and all that, but it never went much further. There was always something…” He glances at you then. “Missing.”

“I know that feeling,” you say with a chuckle, and he laughs too, a breathy sound.

“I don’t have a checklist to pinpoint what it is, though.”

You smile. “You should try, it might help.”

“I just… I guess I’m like you in that I also have high standards. But it made me not even want to give anyone a chance, especially since I knew it wouldn’t end up anywhere.”

“Don’t tell me no one has ever managed to reach the great Jake Sim’s standards?” you ask, trying to keep your tone light.

Jake smiles, but it doesn’t quite reach his eyes. “Of course someone has. She’s the whole reason I have standards in the first place. It’s not my standards I compare people to, it’s her.”

Jealousy has never made you feel as sad as it is right now. “And… it didn’t work out between you?”

Jake looks at you, eyes searching for something in yours but seemingly not finding it, and so he turns his gaze away. You don’t know why you feel so disappointed. “Nope,” he says, popping the ‘p’. “She didn’t feel the same way.”

Whoever this girl is, you can’t believe how stupid she is for passing up the opportunity to have Jake Sim. “That’s… It sucks, I’m sorry,” you say. You don’t think spitting on this girl would make him feel any better, so you keep those thoughts to yourself.

“It’s okay,” he says with a small smile. “It was a while ago already.”

“Doesn’t sound like you’re quite over it, though,” you say, and you’re surprised but glad to see his smile widen.

“That’s true.” His eyes meet yours again. “I don’t think I’ll be over her anytime soon, either.” You have to look away to shield the pain that flashes through your eyes from him.

Pretending you don’t have feelings for your best friend and that you’re okay with him being in love with someone else is like riding a bike: even after years of not doing it, it only takes a few minutes for you to be able to do it perfectly again. Muscle memory, if you will. So you sigh dramatically and throw your arm around Jake’s shoulder, slightly pulling him down to your level. “Don’t worry. We’re going to have so much fun this year, you’ll completely forget about her. Promise. She doesn’t know what she’s missing. Yeah?” 

He smiles down at you. You want nothing more but that glint of melancholy in his eyes to be gone. “Yeah.”

--

Jake is only half-glad to see you haven’t changed much from your childhood and early teenage years. You’re still just as pretty, just as warm; it’s still as comfortable to be around you. You’re also still as dense.

Then and now, he did everything he could to make his feelings for you very, very obvious. Either you’re completely oblivious, or the idea of dating him is so horrifying to you, you understand but pretend you don’t. He really hopes it’s the former. 

He arrived in Edinburgh just a bit over a week ago, and you’ve seen each other almost every day. Out of those times, there isn’t a single one where he hasn’t tried to send something your way - something that says, hey, what if we stopped being friends and dated instead? Wouldn’t that be cool? Can’t you see how desperately I love you?, but you never latch on. The ball’s in your court, and he wants you to throw it back, but it’s been feeling more like a boomerang that always hits him right in the face when it circles back than a game of catch.

But he’s reminding himself not to be too greedy. Even if it’s just as friends, at least he has you back, so he’s satisfied with that. For now.

His first class of the year is on the following Tuesday morning, a ninety-minute seminar specifically made for exchange students called Discover Scotland. (He has Mondays free, resulting in a three-day weekend, which you and your 9am Monday tutorial are very envious of.) As interesting as the English Lit courses he’s taking seem, it’s this one he’s most looking forward to - except for the one class he shares with you, of course. Not even because of the seminars themselves, which will be about all sorts of topics on Scottish culture and history, but because of the coursework, as crazy as that sounds. It consists of a singular project, not due until the very last day of the semester, in which he has to travel to at least three different places in the country, research its background and provide a detailed account of his experience there. It can take any form: a written report, an in-class presentation, a podcast, anything. He could even film a TikTok if he wanted. Jake knew that being part of the Arts & Crafts club for two years in a row back in Seoul wasn’t for nothing - his scrapbooking skills would finally have their time to shine. 

That afternoon, he practically snatches you as you come out of your lecture, giving you little time to say bye to your friends, and makes you take him to the biggest stationary store you know in the city. If he wants to ace this project, he will need supplies. Many, many supplies. And it’s more fun shopping if you’re with him. You seem happy following him around the store, and when he asks you if you want to come on his trips with him, he can pretend it’s because you seem so excited about his project and not because he had thought of you accompanying him as soon as he heard about it.

As you stand in line at the till, you tell him that if he wants to start his project now, you could go to the beach together. You raise your eyebrows at him when he snaps your head towards you. “There’s a beach here?!”

“Did you not look at a map before coming here?” you ask, amused.

“I guess I didn’t…” he says, distraught at the new information. It only lasts a second, though. “Okay, let’s go now.”

“Now?” you echo, and he nods. “But-” you start, but are interrupted by your thoughts. “I guess there’s no reason not to. The weather’s nice and it’s not like I have any uni work yet. Let’s go,” you agree, looking up at him with a smile. You’re so pretty he almost forgets to look away, until the employee calls Next in a bored drawl. 

An hour later, you’re at the beach, barefoot on the sand and ice cream in hand. Strawberry for you and vanilla for him, he notes with a smile. Really not much has changed, he thinks. From the sand, to the water, to the promenade along the beach, Portobello is worlds away from the beaches back home in Australia, or those of Jeju Island. But it’s still nice, and because you’re with him, it’s even better. You’ve been walking around for an hour, splashing each other with water and mercilessly ruining sandcastles left behind before he realises you technically came here for his project. He writes down things he doesn’t want to forget on his phone and snaps a few pictures, sneaking a few of you when you’re not looking. He wants to tell you how beautiful you are with your hair blowing in the wind and the way the chill bites at your cheeks, but he keeps it a secret between him and his Notes app. 

Even though he lives two stops further down, he gets off from the bus with you, containing his excitement as best he can when you invite him up for a cup of tea. “Depends. What tea do you have?” he asks, trying and failing to play it cool. He’s just grateful he doesn’t have to come up with an excuse to spend more time with you.

You roll your eyes playfully as you unlock the front door to your building. “I can make you hot chocolate, Mister Tea-Is-For-Old-People.”

He chuckles. “Actually, I’ll have you know I started drinking tea at uni.” When you turn around to look at him, a surprised look on your face, he nods proudly. “Mh-hm. I got addicted to caffeine very quickly into first year so I started drinking black tea for the sake of my heart,” he explains.

“God,” you say breathily, sounding mildly horrified. “A caffeine addiction sounds intense.”

“It was, yeah,” he says, laughing as he follows you into your flat. 

Yunjin and Chaewon are sitting at the living room table, watching an episode of what he thinks is Gossip Girl, and they greet him as normally as these two can, but he wonders what the knowing look they exchange is all about. He’d met them the previous weekend when you had all gone for drinks together, along with Jay, Yunjin’s boyfriend, and they had all but grilled him on his relationship with you. He hadn’t thought much of it, chalking it up to your friends feeling protective of you, and truthfully, he was just happy to get to talk about you. But now, he was wondering if you had told them anything about him that made them so curious about him. If you did, he hoped it was something positive.

He stands awkwardly in the kitchen, chatting with you as you boil the water and get cups out, but he can feel their gazes burning the back of his head. Clearly, whatever conversation he’s having with you, he’s also having it with them. “How do you take your tea?” you ask.

“Um, three sugars and lots of milk, please,” he says, smiling innocently when you slowly turn to look at him, a mix of disapproval, disgust, and offence on your face. 

You sigh deeply. “I mean, I’ll do it, but I’m not sure that’s even tea anymore.”

“You’re one to talk, Miss Caramel Frappuccino,” he says, recycling your bad joke from earlier.

“At least I don’t claim to be drinking coffee when I order a frap,” you argue. “And this is how you battled your coffee addiction? You’ll be getting another kind of heart problem, Jakey.” He doesn’t know if you even notice your use of his old nickname - the first time you’ve used it since he’s been here - but you don’t make a big deal of it, so he doesn’t either. Not outwardly, at least. Mentally, he’s running laps around your small kitchen.

Jake laughs it off. “I thought I came here for tea, not a health check-up,” he says, smile growing wider at the sight of yours. 

“Right, sorry,” you say, giggling. “I’ll make your tea just how you like it,” you add in a sweet voice. Jake knows you’re just doing it as a joke, but it still manages to make butterflies erupt in his stomach. 

His tea tastes even sweeter that day.

--

A few days after your impromptu trip to the beach, you’re waiting for Jake outside of his class. He heard of this donut shop he “absolutely needs to visit” and is dragging you along with him - well, “dragging” is a big word considering you’d follow him anywhere. You got here a few minutes early, not needing much of a reason to leave the library, so you scroll through your feed until Jake calls out your name. You’re only mildly surprised to see Jay leaving the classroom behind him.

“Y/N! Can you believe that Jay and I are in the same class?” he says excitedly as the two boys walk toward you. You feel like a dog owner being greeted by their over-enthusiastic dog after a long day (about three hours) of being apart.

“I can believe it, actually. You two do the same degree.”

You exchange quick greetings with Jay before the three of you start heading out. As you walk, Jake throws his arm around your shoulders so casually, it almost throws you off balance. Physical contact always came easy to him, but there’s something about him doing it next to someone else that catches you off guard. It reminds you of walking somewhere with Jay and Yunjin as they discretely held hands. It makes you feel like it’s not the three of you, but Jay with the two of you. Like you and Jake come as a pair rather than as two individuals. 

All of that from a simple arm around your shoulders.

Jake asking you in a very unsubtle whisper whether Jay can come with brings you out of your head and back into the conversation. “Yeah, of course,” you say, smiling. It’s not a bad idea to have Jay along: hanging out with someone else might snap you out of your delusion.

Most of the walk to the shop is done in laughter as Jake and Jay realise how much random stuff they have in common, from their peanut allergies to the embarrassing Harry Potter phase they had as fifteen-year-olds. Grassmarket is really busy on Friday afternoons, and there’s a bit of a queue of other donut-enjoyers in front of the boutique, but you don’t mind. The sun is shining down gently on the square and it gives you time to choose your donut out of the ten or so flavours available. In the end, you go for white chocolate and raspberry, while Jake chooses Biscoff and Jay, tiramisu. 

“My friend Sunghoon would love this,” he says after taking a hearty bite. “He goes crazy over tiramisu. Like a cat with catnip.”

Jake chuckles, mouth full of Biscoff. “That’s funny, I also have a friend named Sunghoon who loves tiramisu back in Seoul.”

Jay punches Jake’s shoulder, eyes wide in amusement and shock. “Bro, that’s crazy. You have to be lying at this point,” he says, but Jake shakes his head fervently. 

“I promise I’m not. I’ve even saved his number with the tiramisu emoji.”

“There’s a tiramisu emoji?” Jay asks, already over questioning the existence of Jake’s Sunghoon.

The conversation circles back to the courses you’re all taking this semester, and Jake tells Jay about Discover Scotland and the trips he’s planned so far. “Well, if you really want to discover Scotland as a student, you need to go on a night out in Glasgow,” Jay says. Going by the look on Jake’s face, Jay’s idea seems to have struck a chord in him.

“Y/N?”

You nod, finishing your mouthful of donut before speaking. “Yeah, Glasgow’s really fun. We should go,” you say, laughing when the two boys high-five in victory. Between the train, the drinks and the club entry, going out isn’t a cheap ordeal, and getting to and fro also takes a while - even so, the smile on Jake’s face makes it worth it. 

He wipes some raspberry jam from the corner of your mouth, shooting you a wink, and you want to disintegrate right then and there, become one with the bench you’re sitting on and never have to face him again. The conversation resumes as Jay tells Jake about all the best places to go out in Glasgow, but you don’t hear a word - the feeling of Jake’s thumb so close to your lips takes away your ability for coherent thought.

“It’s decided, then. We’re going out tomorrow night,” Jay loudly announces. “Let me gather the troops.”

That’s how you find yourself in line for the club the next day, already tipsy from pre-drinking on the train and at the pub. It’s still warm enough for you and the girls to wear as little clothing as you want, but Jake insisted on giving you his flannel jacket anyway. If not for the warmth it brings, you’re glad to have his scent enveloping you.

The five of you work exceptionally well together. You, Chaewon and Yunjin have been a given since you met in first year, and Jay and Yunjin went so well together that he was but a natural addition to your little group. Jake’s only been here for over a week, but it’s like he’s always been around, and you couldn’t be happier about it. Him and Jay hit it off immediately, and although the girls needed some time to warm up to him (it’s not everyday that you meet your friend’s ex-best-friend she’s practically always been in love with; you understand why they might’ve been wary at first), they now tease him just as relentlessly as they do Jay. He takes it like a champ.

For a little while, you watch your friends speaking over each other, bickering over nothing, a smile on your face. Two pints of cider and some of Jay’s fancy vodka have made you more grateful than ever for them - if you drink too much in the club, you’ll be hugging them and crying about how much you love them. You’re not sure what that might look like around Jake, so you decide to keep yourself in check for the night. 

It takes about thirty minutes before you manage to get into the club. It’s not coat check season yet, so you head straight to the bar. “Sunghoon said he’d meet us here,” Jay says, lifting his head to spot his friend in the sea of drunk students. “Oh yeah, there he is! Hoon, hey!” 

You hear a loud “Jongseong!” being shouted from somewhere in the crowd, but you’re not sure who Jay is waving at until a boy whose face is mostly eyebrows is standing - well, standing as best as he can, with the copious amount of alcohol he’s obviously already consumed - in front of you. He gives Jay a hug and the three of you a nod of his head, a lopsided smile on his face. When he turns to Jake, his eyebrows lift first, then his face breaks into a wide grin.

“Jake, my man!” he shouts, taking a stunned Jake’s hand and bringing him into a hug. 

“Sunghoon? What the hell are you doing here?” he asks, chuckling and frowning in confusion. 

“I’m just partying, man! Same as you!”

“No, I mean here in Scotland, you dumbass!”

“You two know each other?” Jay asks, looking back and forth between his two friends.

“Jake’s my man!” Sunghoon exclaims, unhelpful and stumbling as he throws an arm around his man’s shoulders. Jake shoots you a distressed look but you just laugh at him.

“This is Tiramisu Sunghoon I told you about,” Jake says, helping Sunghoon stand up straight.

“God, what I would do for a tiramisu right now,” Sunghoon says, looking at Yunjin like she might relate. She chuckles awkwardly.

“I have no idea what he’s doing in Scotland, though. Hoon, I thought you were going to NYU for your exchange?”

Sunghoon pauses to think for a second, looking like he’s never heard of NYU in his life. “Oh, that! Yeah, I did an online orientation thing and… it did not go well. Let’s just say there’s someone in New York City who wants me dead,” he says conspiratorially. You all stare at him but he gives no further explanation. On your right, you hear Yunjin whisper what the fuck under her breath. “So I transferred here instead!”

“I didn’t know you were an exchange student,” Jay says, still looking just as confused.

“Yeah, man! But anyways, let’s not talk about uni right now. I’m on a bender, day three, baby! Do not talk to me tomorrow,” he says, chuckling until the smile suddenly drops from his face. “I mean that.” You look around yourself, glad to find everyone is just as baffled as you. “Let’s party!” Sunghoon cheers, intoxicated grin back on his lips. Jake and Jay follow, but you and the girls stay back for a second, taking in everything that has just happened.

“That. Is the most beautiful man I have ever seen,” Chaewon blurts, staring blankly at the spot Sunghoon stood in a second ago.

“Yeah, he also seems to be a raging alcoholic. And he’s what, twenty-one?” Yunjin says, a scowl on her face. 

“I could fix him.”

“Okay, let’s go,” you say, grabbing your friends by their wrists before either of them can say something worse.

Feeling generous, Sunghoon buys shots for all six of you, and you quickly down them before heading to the dancefloor. On your way there, a group of sober-looking girls hand Chaewon a giant, still almost full jug of red liquid, something that costs at least twelve pounds here. They say they’re leaving and don’t need it anymore, smiling as you profusely and astonishedly thank them. You look at your friends, mentally weighing the risk and drugging possibility this might present, but shrug and pass the jug around after taking hearty sips anyway. It tastes so much like fizzy cherries that you wonder if it even contains any alcohol, but sure enough, twenty minutes later, the three of you are spinning around on the dancefloor, screaming the lyrics to your favourite pop songs at the top of your lungs. Jake at a club is a completely foreign sight to you, and you can’t stop laughing at all the silly moves he pulls. 

You’re shaking your whole body to a Nicki song from the early 2010s when you suddenly feel a hand on your hip. Before you can turn around and slap whoever this random man is that thinks he can touch you, a familiar voice whispers it’s just me in your ear, and you simultaneously relax and tense up knowing that Jake is standing right behind you. “There’s a creep staring at you,” he explains, lips and breath gently tickling your ear as he speaks. You look around the room and quickly notice a man standing in a corner, drink in one hand and the other in his pocket, unmoving as he eyes you with a smirk so slimy it makes your stomach turn. To avoid his gaze, you turn around, but you’re not sure the sight you’re met with is much better for you.

Jake peers down at you, eyes slightly glossed over and cheeks flushed from the alcohol, jaw locked in annoyance. He glances at the guy in the corner, who you assume is still staring when you feel Jake’s hands brush along your sides until they reach your waist. His gaze returns to your face as he brings you a step closer to him. Reflexively, you wrap your arms around his neck. 

“Is this okay?” he mouths. All you can do is meekly nod. You watch as his eyes deliberately scan your face, going down and down. Time stills when they reach your lips and stay there. It’s like someone has put the booming music of the club on mute, and the only thing you can hear is your heart loudly beating in your ears. You suddenly feel very sober.

You swear Jake’s face is slowly inching its way towards yours when you’re abruptly taken away. Yunjin has grabbed you by the forearm, leading you and Chaewon to the bathroom as she chants “Bathroom break! Bathroom break!”, clearly unaware of the moment she’s just interrupted.

Because of the queue for the girls’ bathroom and Chaewon’s decision to console this random girl who was in the middle of a breakdown, it’s not until half-an-hour later that you emerge back into the crowd. You spot the boys at a table, two empty shots each in front of them and all three with a beer in hand. They will not be happy checking their bank accounts tomorrow morning. 

“Y/N! You’re back!” Jake calls out happily when he spots you, and you can tell right away that he’s much drunker than when you left him. His whole face is flush, his eyes don’t open quite all the way, and a lopsided smile won’t leave his lips - even like this, he’s so pretty that you want to grab his hand and take him somewhere it’s just the two of you. 

Chaewon gets drinks for the three of you and then you’re dancing again. It’s already one am at this point, and the remaining two hours until the club closes, fueled with alcohol and good music, go by in a flash. Before you know it, the DJ is playing All of Me by John Legend and the lights have been turned on, clear signs that you’re overstaying your welcome. The few people that have made it to closing time stumble out of the club and into the street, heading for either the nearest subway stop or the next party of the night. Since there are no trains at this time, your group walks to the close-by bus station, listening to Jake and Sunghoon grumble about how the clubs in Seoul don’t close until at least five or six and how trains run all night there. 

The bus is already at the station when you get there, and the driver doesn’t seem too pleased about having six mildly drunk kids get on his bus, but he’s probably used to questionable people taking public transport at this time of the day anyway. Physically, Sunghoon is sitting across from you, but mentally, he’s off somewhere far, far from this bus. With his head against the window and mouth wide open, saliva pooling at the corner of his lips, he looks like he’s any second away from obnoxiously snoring. Jay and Yunjin are sitting somewhere you can’t see them, probably eating each other’s faces; she once told you they had their “most mind-blowing sex” when both a little drunk, and much to your dismay, you haven’t been able to get that piece of information out of your head since. Chaewon is on the phone to her long-distance bestie Sakura, for whom it’s a nice eleven in the morning right now. 

This means that you and Jake are left alone, both of you still tipsy and not tired enough to fall asleep. You drop your head on Jake’s shoulder, and not only does he let you, he also takes your hand in his, interlacing your fingers and placing them atop his thigh. Clumsily, because he now has to use his left hand, Jake slips his phone out of his back pocket and shows you the photos he took all evening. As the night progresses, they get blurrier and blurrier, so much so that towards the end, you can’t tell what he was even trying to capture, and you laugh at how inappropriate some of these would be to submit in a university project. 

When he softly says your name, you don’t raise your head, simply humming to let him know you’re listening. You close your eyes, cherishing the way your name sounds on his lips. It’s his tone, tentative and vulnerable as he tells you there’s something he’s been wanting to ask you, that makes you look up at him. He, however, won’t meet your eyes, and settles his gaze on the window, even though it’s so dark outside you can’t make out a thing.

“How come you never replied to my letter? I know it’s been ages, but… I still find myself wondering about it.” The question is softly asked and you know he by no means wants to hurt you, but it still feels like a punch to the throat. You hadn’t remembered who it was that had sent the last letter, while he’d been wondering all these years why his words had been left unanswered. 

He seems set on not looking at you, so you rest your head back on his shoulder. Your hand is still in his. “I’m not sure, Jakey. I’m sorry,” you say, aware it’s not a satisfying answer. You’ve thought about why you and Jake had stopped talking for hours on end; you’ve discussed it with your friends and your mum, looked at it from all sorts of angles, tried to come up with real reasons other than time pulling you apart. But now that Jake himself is asking you about it, the words don’t come easy. You’ve theorised that you were afraid putting effort into sustaining your friendship would only hurt you in the end, because it was just that - a friendship. You could fool yourself into thinking you were okay only being friends with him when he was with you, that putting your feelings aside was worth it since you could at least spend time with him. But now that he was away, you didn’t have that anymore - it just hurt. So what was the point? And how could you phrase all this without betraying your feelings for him?

“Our letters were so sparse anyway back then, even our texts and calls were getting less and less frequent… And whenever I had a new boyfriend, I’d get into the same argument about being too close to you over and over again, even though you were literally on another continent.” 

“You know, I always felt sorry about that.”

“About what?”

“Those boyfriends of yours. I felt like you waited for me to leave before you started dating-”

“It wasn’t like that!” you exclaim, lifting your head again. Finally, he meets your eyes, gaze softening upon seeing your affronted expression. “It wasn’t like that,” you repeat, relaxing your tone. “If anything, they were the ones that waited for you to be gone. I'm sorry I let their jealousy get to me.”

Jake smiles, the tenderness in his gaze making your whole body turn to jelly. He squeezes your hands. “It’s okay. I just… I felt like I was always in the way of your relationships, even after I left.”

“You don’t have to feel sorry about that. They should’ve had more trust in me.”

He pauses, gaze dropping down to your intertwined hands. “I would’ve been jealous.” When his eyes find yours again, there’s something in them that you quite can’t place. It creates a ball of nerves that pull at your stomach. “If I were dating you, and you had a guy friend you were as close with as we were back then, I’d be jealous. You know, I’d assume he had feelings for you. And that you might have feelings for him, too.”

Because I did, you think. I did, and I still do. You try to communicate that thought to Jake, but telepathy works especially bad when one has as much alcohol coursing through their veins as you do right now. So instead, you say the opposite of what you’re thinking, turning away from Jake to avoid his gaze. You watch the dribble of saliva trickle from Sunghoon’s lips. “That’s not a great view of male-female friendship.” 

Jake’s retort comes immediately. “But we were different, right?”

His words echo through your head until they make even less sense than they did initially. Different from what? From who? You’re not sure - but you like the idea of you and Jake being different, special. You especially like the idea of Jake thinking so. So you look at him and smile. “Right.” 

Slowly, his grin fades and turns into a worried expression. “Y/N?”

“Mm?”

“We’re still different now, aren’t we?”

You want to wrap him in your arms so tightly neither of you can breathe. You settle for running a hand through his hair and pinching his cheek. “Course we are.” Your whole being relaxes when his face breaks into a smile again. 

--

The next morning, you wake up to Yunjin plopping down on your bed unceremoniously, shaking you awake, and asking you if you want anything from Snax Café. On one hand, you’re grateful that she thought of you and that in thirty minutes’ time, you’ll have the greasiest sausage wrap and hash browns known to man in your hand; on the other, you’d like to think that she knows you well enough to know to order your regular from there without asking. But that’s probably the hangover talking.

You stumble out of bed, thanking last night’s you for having remembered to take headache medicine before crashing. Even if your stomach is very upset with the copious amount of alcohol it needs to rid your body of, and your throat is begging for water, at least your head doesn’t feel like it’s been split into two. As Yunjin barges into Chaewon’s room just as she had done yours, you head for the kitchen to get yourself a tall glass of revitalising tap water. You’re only mildly surprised to find Sunghoon passed out on your living room couch - it takes you a few seconds to remember that the three of you took pity on him when you learned he lived over an hour’s walk from the station, so you let him spend the night on your uncomfortable, cold leather sofa. While you down your glass in three gulps, you hear Yunjin shaking Sunghoon awake and asking him loudly if he wanted something from Snax.

“Fuck, I’d kill for a Snax right now,” he groggily says before he’s even opened his eyes. When he does, they dart around the room until they land on Yunjin, who's crouching in front of him. He looks like he thought her question was asked in a dream and not in real life. He also looks like he's not quite sure where he is, or who Yunjin is. It isn’t until Jay comes wobbling out of Yunjin’s bed to the couch opposite Sunghoon that the memories seem to piece back together in his head. The three of you watch him like he’s an unstable mental patient and you’re his doctors. 

“No need for that, I’m ordering it on Deliveroo.” He nods his head and goes back to sleep for the time being. 

Just as you’re about to text Jake, your phone rings with a call from him. His raspy morning voice as he asks you whether you slept well makes you want to put your head in an oven heated at 200 degrees Celsius. However, you resist the urge, and answer him with a smile, then ask him the same question.

“I slept pretty well too. I’d have slept in longer but one of my flatmates decided to have a Sunday fucking brunch and his friends are so loud. Can I come over?”

You’re very aware of the other people in the room, especially of Chaewon who has just walked in and is eyeing you suspiciously as if to say, Why are you smiling so hard at ten in the morning? You know the girls would jump at any opportunity to tease you about Jake, and with the added presence of Sunghoon in the room, you can’t have that. So you stifle the giggles bubbling in your throat and answer as nonchalantly as you can. It also gives you the chance to reflect on why Jake Sim asking you whether he can come over makes you want to giggle like a giddy schoolgirl so much.

(Maybe it’s because when it comes to him, you’re still the giddy schoolgirl you used to be.)

“Yeah, of course. I was going to ask you if you wanted anything from Snax, actually.”

“Snax? What’s that?”

“Oh my God, Jake, am I about to introduce you to Snax right now?”

Twenty minutes later, the six of you are sitting around your small living room table, all varying amounts of tired, dehydrated and famished as you dig into your breakfast. Given your current levels of energy, it’s fairly quiet; plus, the food hits such a spot that it’s hard to talk and eat at the same time. Jake eats like he’s never had a breakfast wrap and hash brown in his life. It’s an endearing sight if you’ve ever seen one. 

You spend the afternoon together, watching movies curled up in your bed, and you try desperately not to think about the implications of that - except that’s hard to do when Jake is right next to you, legs and arms ever-so-slightly brushing against yours, his warmth so close yet so out of reach. You purposefully let him pick movies you’ve already seen so that you don’t have to focus on anything but your own thoughts and the faint but dizzying scent of his body wash. The both of you had an innumerable amount of sleepovers as kids, so this shouldn’t feel weird, but it decidedly does, probably because you’re much more aware of him now in a way you weren’t before.  

As hard as you try to figure out what exactly he meant by “different,” you draw a blank. The only way you’ll understand is if you ask him, and you’re far too scared to do that. You don’t want to seem so hung upon a singular word he used when he was tipsy. It might be slightly dramatic, but you felt like some sort of balance had been restored since Jake was back in your life - the problem was it made you scared to do anything that might threaten this newfound equilibrium. It at least seems like different means a good thing to him, and that’s enough for you. 

You look over to him when the second movie comes to an end. He’s sleeping peacefully, lashes caressing the skin under his eyes and cheeks looking rounder than usual. It’d be so easy to reach a finger out and trace the line descending from the top of his forehead to his chin, gliding along the bump of his nose and feeling the plumpness of his rosy lips, but you settle for drawing that line with your eyes instead.  

You don’t think you’ll be able to fall asleep with him next to you and your heart beating so loudly in your ears, but you find yourself waking up a few hours later, the sun already starting to set. Jake is already awake, scrolling on his phone, one arm casually behind his head as if being in your bed is as comfortable to him as being in his own. When he sees you’ve woken up, his honey-coated smile washes warmly over you, and he makes a joke about how he keeps on falling asleep when he’s with you. “I feel that at ease, I guess,” he says, and you hope you’re not making up the small blush that spreads over his cheeks. 

--

Semesters are always a short and intense affair, but this one passes by even quicker with Jake by your side. Before you know it, it’s midterms already, and you and Jake have travelled enough for him to complete his project and make another one just for the hell of it. He had scoured the internet for the cheapest train tickets and most noteworthy sites, planning trips that lasted anywhere between three hours and a day for the two of you. All you needed to do was follow and trust him, which was the easiest thing anyone could’ve asked of you. 

You’ve gone back to Glasgow, during the day, this time, as well as St. Andrews and Aberdeen. You’ve practically visited every loch and castle in a one-hour train ride radius of Edinburgh, and Jake has more lined up for the second part of the semester. He’s even said that your trips should continue being a thing next term, and you couldn’t have agreed faster. With every new destination, every train ride spent looking out a window or laughing about everything and anything, any odd Scottish food you try for the first time, you somehow fall for him a bit deeper. You didn’t know your love for him could bloom any more than it already had - but Jake is the gift that keeps on giving, and, unwillingly or not, he always finds new ways to make your heart speed that much faster.

Attentionate, affectionate, sweet Jake who always makes sure you’re comfortable wherever you go, always gives you his jacket or tucks your hair behind your ear to prevent it from falling in your face. Who, as time passed, grew more touchy, would hold your hand, ruffle your hair, pinch your cheek, which was simultaneously devastating and elating. Who, you could tell, started to linger more, both in his touch and in his gaze. Questions of does he love me back or am I seeing what I want to see? nearly drove you mad. 

--

“I feel like at this point the only way she’ll understand that I like her is if I kill myself and write in my suicide note that it’s her fault for not loving me back.”

Jake has been pacing back and forth in Jay’s living room for approximately twenty minutes, with no end in sight. At least he’ll have gotten most of his ten thousand steps of the day in.

Jay sighs heavily. “Okay, I really don’t think you need to go that far.”

“Sounds romantic to me,” Sunghoon says, mouth full of salted caramel popcorn.

“I hope you never get a girlfriend,” Jay retorts, looking at his deranged friend with a scowl. He turns back to his (slightly more) normal friend and gives him a sympathetic smile. 

“I mean, I told her we were different. Different. That we weren’t like regular friends. I tell her she’s pretty every chance I get. I give her my jacket all the time, even though this country is fucking cold. I’ve even given her a t-shirt of mine, sprayed with my perfume and everything. And don’t get me wrong, I do it ‘cause I love doing that for her-”

“Simp,” Sunghoon snickers.

“But what the hell else can I do? Like, she has to be ignoring it on purpose at this point.” 

“You could always, you know… tell her?”

Jake scoffs, fixing his friend with a derisive look. “Wow. What a great idea, Jay, I never thought of that one before!”

A popcorn lands right on Jay’s cheek. “You’re so clueless, man,” Sunghoon says, a shit-eating smirk on his lips. As if he knows any better.

Jay looks back-and-forth between his friends, an expression on his face like he’s been disparaged. “Sorry, I didn’t know being straightforward and honest was such a bad thing. It would just make things a lot clearer for the both of you.”

“But… I’m scared,” Jake says. 

“Man up!” Sunghoon suddenly yells, punching the sofa next to him, making his friends jump. “How can she ever figure it out if you don’t tell her?”

“You were on my side just a second ago, man, what are you doing?” Jake asks, confusion written all over his face. Sunghoon’s eyes dart back and forth between the two boys, retreating into silence as he stuffs his mouth with another handful of popcorn.

“Just ignore him,” Jay says. “But for once, he did say something that makes a modicum of sense. You think you’re being really obvious, but you might not actually be. Which could be a good sign, you know. I heard girls were super aware of a guy liking them if they weren’t into him, but being totally oblivious if they did like him.”

“Where did you hear that?” Jake asks, an eyebrow raised in suspicion.

“...Instagram Reels,” Jay reluctantly admits, frowning at Sunghoon who bursts into laughter. 

Jake holds the bridge of his nose between two fingers like his head aches. “You’re both so useless, I’m never coming to you with my problems ever again.”

“I’ll pretend I’m not offended by that.”

“I’d rather you didn’t, anyway,” Sunghoon says. He’s smiling but Jake genuinely can’t tell if he’s joking or not.

“But seriously, if you think you’ve done everything, then just do one last thing that’s so obvious she can’t misinterpret it,” Jay says.

“Like what?”

“Like kissing her, or some-”

“Kissing her?!” Jake echoes.

“That’s wild, man,” Sunghoon uselessly butts in.

“It’s just an example, calm yourselves,” Jay says. “Or, again, just straight up tell her how you feel. It’s what I did with Yunjin, and it worked.”

“You and Yunjin are dating?” Sunghoon asks, bewildered.

Jay shakes his head at him. “Where the hell have you been, bro? We were literally cuddling on the couch the other day.”

“I just thought you were really good friends, or something.”

Jake groans, holding his head in his hands. Sunghoon was of no help whatsoever, and Jay was so on point that it annoyed him. Confessing was the only solution - but Jake was so afraid of being rejected and losing your friendship that he had barely entertained the thought. But he had found the courage to do it once, and even though his planned confession had fallen through back then, he could get himself together and do it again. 

It was the day he had told you he was moving to Korea, which he himself had learned that morning. Originally, he’d texted you because he had news to share - good news. Or at least, he hoped they were good. He hoped the soft, lingering looks you gave him weren’t a figment of his imagination but rather the confirmation he needed that you liked him back. He hoped that like him, you cared too much about your friendship to make the first move into something else; that by confessing first, you’d be relieved of that responsibility; that his wish to hold your hand and kiss your forehead wasn’t one-sided. 

He decided not to prepare anything - just a couple sentences that he’d rehearsed over and over in his head. Declarations of love, bouquets of flowers, chocolate and couple keychains, all that could wait until after you’d said yes to being his girlfriend. He didn’t want to win you over just once, he wanted to show you every day how much he loved you. Fourteen-year-old Jake was absolutely head over heels for you; so imagine his disappointment when, as he was getting ready to meet with you, his parents called him downstairs, a tone to their voice Jake wasn’t familiar with, but that couldn’t mean anything good. 

“Your dad’s job is sending us back to Seoul next month,” his mom announced, not beating around the bush. He felt everything quite literally crumbling down around him. His friends in Brisbane, his school, his hobbies, but above all, you. He’d lose it all. And what was the point now in telling you how he felt? If you felt the same way, it would only make his departure that much harder, and if you didn’t, it would ruin your last moments together. It just wasn’t worth it.

What he had planned to be good news turned into the most awful ones. The thought of it happening all over again makes twenty-year-old Jake shudder. But he wouldn’t let himself be trapped by time again - sure, in seven months, the academic year would be over, and he would go back to Korea. But that didn’t mean that those seven months should be spent in agony, or the following ones either, for that matter. You would make it work. What was long-distance to someone who loved someone else as much as Jake loved you?

But he doesn’t want to get ahead of himself. He has to start by really resolving to do this, and in the off-chance that it actually goes in his favour, he’d start worrying about long distance then.

First, he has a trip to plan.

--

You should’ve known that a trip to the Scottish Highlands in the middle of November was a risky choice in terms of weather. The day started off nicely enough - no sign of rain when you woke up or as you watched the sunrise through the train window. Clouds turned the sky a bright white at first, then increasingly greyer and greyer. You feel the first drops of rain after lunch as you walk around a small village. By four pm, it’s pitch black and storming like you’ve rarely seen before. You head into a pub to grab a drink as you wait for the rain to subside, but subside it does not. You end up ordering fish and chips, one each, although one serving is enough to feed three. Even after taking your time eating, the bad weather does not let up. The last train, which is meant to be at eight pm, has been cancelled. Luckily, there’s an inn right across the road from the pub; you have no choice but to spend the night. 

The inn receptionist is sitting so low on her chair, you can barely see her over the desk until you’re standing right over it. Her face is hidden by a book and it’s only when you say hiya that she seems to realise you’re there. You had never heard of the book or of its author, but you recognized the cover design as that of those romance novels with repetitive plots and weirdly misogynistic love interests your mum and every other middle-aged woman was obsessed with.

Her smile widens as she looks between you and Jake. “Hi there. One room for the lovely couple?”

“Oh, we’re not-”

“Yes, please,” Jake interrupts, smiling down at her, then at you. “It’ll be cheaper if we share a room.”

“Our only room with two single beds is already taken, I’m afraid. One double bed okay for you two?”

You feel like you’re about to faint, so you’re glad Jake is there to answer. “Yeah, of course.” How the idea of sharing one bed with you is so okay to him, you’re not sure - granted, you’ve done it before, but this feels different. For all intents and purposes, this is a hotel room you’re staying in. And you’re staying in it with Jake. 

You try to calm your breathing as the receptionist guides you to your room, chatting casually with Jake on the way there. As she unlocks the door for you, she informs you that check-out must be done before eleven in the morning tomorrow, then bids you good night and leaves you to it, still wearing that smile you swear has mischievousness to it. The door clicks shut behind you, and it’s just Jake and you again, together in this small room until tomorrow morning. Your chances of survival are very, very low. 

Your room is a humble one, consisting of a desk, a cupboard, two armchairs, a small, separate bathroom and the infamous bed. Every surface seems to be covered with wood, from the ceiling, to the walls, to the old-fashioned furniture. Only the floor is a soft, beige carpet. Especially with the darkness outside, it makes for a gloomy room until you turn on the lamp by the entrance; it casts a warm, golden light in the room, one that would make you feel at ease if it wasn’t for Jake’s presence next to you. The implications of being essentially trapped in a barely-lit room with him are heavy on your mind, especially when he looks this gorgeous with his hair still damp from the rain and the soft lights playing on his face. 

His voice brings you out of your thoughts. “Right. Do you, um, do you wanna shower first?” he asks, setting his bag on one of the armchairs.

“Oh. Yeah, sure.” There has never been such an awkward tension between the two of you, but you know you’re not doing anything to ease it. You hope a shower will help you get out of your head and make you relax.

You feel the tension leave your muscles under the hot water, but your stomach is still in knots. You’ve never been this nervous around Jake before; back when you were fourteen and again in these past few months, you’d gotten so used to dealing with your unspoken feelings for him that you could almost forget about them when you were with him. They’d come back to you when you were alone and dwelling on the moments you’d spent together, on his words and actions you desperately tried not to read too much into but always ended up doing anyway. But right now, they’ve floated to the surface, becoming as obvious to you as a stain on your skin you can’t rub away. You’re scared Jake will notice it, and, in the worst case scenario you often thought about, would run away and never speak to you again. 

At least the raging storm outside would make that a bit harder.

When you step out of the shower, you curse yourself for not having worn more comfortable clothes on this trip. You definitely can’t wear these jeans and button-up sweater to lounge around. Thankfully, the inn provides two long bathrobes that you could wear over underwear and your tank top, but you wonder where on the scale of inappropriate this would be to wear with Jake in the room. He’s seen you in short pyjama shorts before, but this, like everything else that would usually be normal between the two of you, feels weird today. 

You wrap the bathrobe around yourself, tying it in place around your waist, and decide that it’d only be weird if you made it weird. And if Jake found the sight of your bare legs weird, then he was the weird one.

The scene you’re met with as you walk into the room makes you want to retreat into the bathroom immediately. Jake is lying on the bed with his upper half against the headboard, one leg extended and the other one bent, resting his head against one palm, using his free hand to scroll through his phone. His t-shirt has ridden up slightly, putting the waistband of his Calvin Kleins into view. Worst of all, when he sees you, his face breaks into a grin. 

Your stomach twists when he gives you a once-over, letting his gaze linger on your legs. “Did you bring a bathrobe with you or was it included?” he asks with an annoyingly handsome smirk.

You roll your eyes. “Yes, I bring a bathrobe with me wherever I go,” you say sarcastically. “Now shut up and go shower, you stink.” Reverting to insults is always the solution when you’re internally freaking out.

“Yes, ma’am.” 

He takes so long in the shower that by the time he comes out, you’ve dozed off in bed. As if you were a child, he wakes you up with a boop to the nose, crouching next to the bed and smiling at you. His wet hair falls on his head like that of a movie star in a shower scene, which you find extremely unfair, and his cheeks are red from the warmth of the water. 

“It’s still early. Do you wanna go grab another drink?”

“In our bathrobes?” you say, laughing. “Nah, I don’t really feel like drinking anyway.” Read: I’m not sure what I’ll do with alcohol in me.

“Okay, no worries. Um, I think I saw they had board games in the lobby?”

Your ears perk up at this. “Ooh, what kind of board games?”

Putting jeans on underneath his bathrobe, Jake slips away for a minute and comes back with Monopoly, Uno, and a deck of cards. “They didn’t have much for two players,” he says, dumping everything on the bed. 

You already knew that anything would become fun if you did it with Jake, but you definitely didn’t expect to spend almost five hours just playing Monopoly and card games with him. Neither of you stays put for very long, always switching from sitting criss-cross to laying on your stomach, making fun of the other’s bathrobe even though you’re wearing the exact same thing. You make each other laugh as you make up your own nonsense rules and disregard the laws of your games, attacking the other ruthlessly for a couple extra points or coins. Jake even makes you go get snacks from a corner store that’s miraculously still open because you lose the first round of Uno. 

After some time, Jake lets out a loud yawn, which in turn makes you yawn too. He checks his phone to find that it’s close to midnight already. “Time for bed?” he asks, and your nervousness that had finally dissipated as you played came rushing back. 

You nod. “Yeah, sounds good.”

The two of you clean up before brushing your teeth. Even that, with Jake by your side, becomes a silly affair as he pulls faces in the mirror and nudges your hip with his. You stay behind to use the toilet, and when you come back out, Jake’s already in bed, bathrobe tossed on one of the armchairs. This means that Jake is just casually in a t-shirt and boxers, waiting for you to join him in bed. Luckily, his back is turned to you, so you quickly take off your own bathrobe and slide under the sheets, careful to keep your distance from him. The sheets are cold underneath you, and you know it’ll take a while before your body heat warms them up - although you feel very hot and bothered because of the man lying next to you. 

“Gosh, I’m really sleepy all of a sudden,” he says, words distorted by a yawn. You only hum in response, and he reaches for the lamp to turn it off. Just like that, you’re in complete darkness, and Jake’s body is mere inches from your own. 

It’s eerily quiet for a while, and when you’ve managed to slow your heartbeat and regularise your breathing, you start trying to fall asleep. You toss and turn, unable to find a comfortable position until Jake’s low, sleepy voice breaks the silence. “Can’t sleep?” he asks, and you freeze.

You sigh. “No. I’m sorry for keeping you up,” you say guiltily.

“It’s okay. I can’t really sleep either. It’s a bit cold in here.”

You pause. “Right. Yeah, it is,” you say, even though you feel like you’re sweating buckets. 

The room plunges into silence again, long enough for you to think Jake has fallen asleep. You feel something cold against your foot, only realising as it slides up your calf that it’s his foot. “Jake!” you whisper-yell, withdrawing your leg as he bursts into giggles that warm your heart. “Your feet are so cold,” you say in-between chuckles.

“I’m cold all over,” he whines. “Have they not turned the heating on yet? It’s already mid-November.”

“People are used to the cold here.”

“Well I’m not. Can we cuddle?” he suddenly asks, and he must somehow feel the way you freeze in place because he stammers out a justification straight away. “For, I mean, just for warmth, you know. I don’t think I’ll sleep otherwise.”

His foot finds yours again and you can’t help but laugh. “Sure, fine,” you say with a sigh as if you were doing only half-heartedly for his sake. As if this was some big sacrifice you were making, and not something you’d daydreamed about one too many times before. 

Your heart is beating a thousand miles a second when you scooch closer to Jake, his hands finding your waist as easily as if they’d been there a hundred times before. He pulls you in much closer than you had expected, holding you tightly against his chest, one arm for you to use as a pillow and one hand resting on your lower back. You try to calm your respiration so that he can’t hear how short of breath you are, but based on his own breathing, he seems to be out in five minutes. It takes you longer to fall asleep, every shift of his body sending shivers down your spine, but you manage to relax after some time, letting his warmth envelop you as you drift off to sleep.

--

The feeling of waking up with you in his arms is so unreal, Jake thinks he might still be dreaming.

He looks down at your peaceful sleeping face and can’t stop the smile that spreads on his lips. Jake always thinks you’re pretty, but this is a sight he particularly wants to commit to memory. He watches fondly as the bright sun rays of the early morning hit your face, making you scrunch your eyebrows and bury your face deeper against him. You grunt softly, and when he feels you shifting and stretching your legs, he pretends to fall asleep so you don’t catch him staring. It seems like you’ve raised your head, chin tilted towards him - if he’s lucky, you’re watching him “sleep” just like he did seconds ago.

He contains a smile at the joke that forms itself in his brain before shooting his eyes open, catching you off guard during what you thought was a private, secret moment. 

“Shit!” you yelp, practically jumping off of him and rolling onto the other side of the bed. He bursts into laughter, proud that his little prank was effective. Before you can scold him, he makes his way to you, wrapping an arm around your waist and bringing your back against his chest. He thinks he feels your body tense; but then you bring your hand over his, swiping your thumb back and forth against his skin, and you relax in his hold. “You’re so annoying,” you complain, but your voice is tender, almost weak.

He buries his face in your hair, trying not to be too loud when he inhales there. “Sorry,” he says, the smile evident in his voice. “The opportunity was right there. Caught you staring, huh?”

“You’re such an idiot.”

“I’ll take that as a yes.” It’s quiet for a few minutes, and Jake is more than happy to enjoy this moment in silence, but there’s something burning the tip of his tongue. It’s been there for a while now, but he thinks he’s finally found the right moment. “Y/N?”

“Mm?”

“There’s something I couldn’t tell you last night, but I feel oddly okay saying it right now. Are you listening?” 

“I am, yeah,” you say gently, voice so soft it caresses his skin and draws goosebumps from it.

His chest expands and falls with a deep, shaky breath. With your back right against it, he’s scared you’ll hear that his heart is beating faster than it should. “Bad news first?” he says with a nervous chuckle.

“Uh-oh.”

“There’s no roundabout way to say this, so here goes, I guess.” He takes another breath. “I’m in love with you, Y/N.” You tense in his embrace, and he waits for you to say something, anything before he continues.

“Oh,” is all you say. He hopes it’s a good oh - even if it isn’t, he doesn’t let it deter him.

“Yeah. I really debated telling you this… I know you might not feel the same way. But I also know that if I don’t say anything and make the same mistake twice, I’ll beat myself up over it for the rest of my life.”

“The same mistake?” you ask, looking at him over your shoulder.

He gazes down at you tenderly, pushing hair away from your face with a gentle hand. “I already felt that way back when we lived in Australia. I was about to tell you but when I learned that I was moving, I didn’t wanna risk ruining the little time we had left together.”

The look on your face both breaks his heart and patches it up again. “Jakey…” you say, voice just a whisper. You turn around to face him and bury your face in the crook of his neck. The fact that you’re not saying much is making his stomach twist in agonising stress, but he takes it as a good sign that you’re still holding him tight and not running away.

“I think I’d be the luckiest guy on Earth if you felt the same way,” he says, hopefulness clear in his voice. 

And then he finally hears the words he’s been dying to hear all these years. “Of course, I feel the same way, Jake,” you say, eyes meeting his. “This isn’t bad news at all, it’s like, the best possible news ever.”

It takes him a few seconds, but when your words sink in, a bright smile graces his features. He feels tears coming up - tears of relief that you feel the same way, of sadness that it took the both of you so long to get here, of happiness that something new might start - he’s not sure. Perhaps everything at once.

“Of course?” he echoes, smiling wildly. “It wasn’t obvious to me.”

“Oh, gosh,” you murmur, burying yourself into him once more. “I can’t believe this is actually happening.”

He tightened his hold around you, bringing you to him as close as physically possible. “Me neither.”

The feeling of you tangling your bare legs with his and bunching up the fabric of his t-shirt in your fist awakens something in him - he had been in his head, thanking the heavens that you loved him back, reeling from his belated confession, but he was now very aware of his body. And of yours. He was reminded of Jay telling him to kiss you - although he hadn’t needed to go there to reveal his feelings to you, it was still a possibility. It was even more so now that he knew you felt the same way. 

He tries to be subtle as he brushes a hand up your back to the nape of your neck, gently grazing his fingernails against the skin there. He has to suppress a self-satisfied smirk when he feels you squirm under his touch, lifting your head to fix him with a scolding look. Your stern expression fades as soon as his eyes fall on your lips, however, and you quickly mirror his gaze. His lips part, and he feels his whole body shake as he takes a deep breath in. Who knew that you’d share your first kiss on a random Sunday morning in the fuckass middle of nowhere in Scotland?

Maybe you take pity on him, or you recognise the effort put into being the one to make the first move, or, as he’d like to think, you just really want to kiss him - either way, you’re the one who closes the gap and presses your lips to his.

Your lips. So soft, so delicate against his, absolutely perfect. It’s a simple, tentative touch, but he’s craved it for so long that it makes his head spin. He frowns, despite himself instantly needing more than this feather-like feeling of your lips brushing against each other. His mind tells him to calm down and take it slow, but his body takes over, urging him to grab the nape of your neck a little harder, to hold you a little closer to him, to kiss you a little stronger. Thankfully, you let him do all of this and more, hands finding purchase in his hair and returning his intensity tenfold. 

He doesn’t know what’s better - the fact that you’re kissing him or the kiss itself. The way your lips move against his is intoxicating; it wraps itself around its mind and leaves no room for thoughts that aren’t of you. You seem to want him as desperately as he wants you, to have waited for him as long as he did for you, and this is what drives him crazy. You press your body against his and he sees stars; you let out a moan against his lips and he kisses you deeper, ready to do anything to hear that melody again. 

Unfortunately, the only melody he gets to hear is that of his phone alarm, informing you that it’s quarter to eleven and that you have fifteen minutes to leave. Check-out at eleven am had sounded nice yesterday; now, he would stay in this dingy inn his whole life if it meant he got to keep kissing you. 

The both of you reluctantly break apart, bursting into giddy laughter when your eyes meet. As said before, Jake always thinks you’re pretty, but with your pupils blown and your lips plump from kissing, this might just be the prettiest he’s ever seen you. 

“You know, I like you a lot, but I’d like you even more if you could stop time,” you say.

He looks down at you with a smile, pushing away the strands of hair that had fallen on your face. “Sure, I’ll learn how to control time for you.”

“Thanks, Jakey.” You peck his lips, lingering, and he closes his eyes to savour your sweetness. 

“Anything for you, baby.” His eyes widen at the nickname slip, but you erupt into giggles.

“Baby?”

“Would you look at the time, we really got to go,” he says, detangling his limbs from yours. He pauses for a second. “Baby,” he repeats, pressing a quick kiss to your forehead before bouncing from the bed.

You get ready together, and the mundane tasks of stripping sheets from a bed and packing bags become the funnest things he’s ever done. You’re all over each other, attacking the other with kisses and hugs; Jake doesn’t think he’s ever felt quite this happy. 

And this is only the beginning.

--

There’s a glint in the receptionist’s eyes when you check out of your room, as if she knew something you and Jake had been oblivious to all along. It’s the only one in town, so you go back to the little pub for a full breakfast with eggs, hash browns, haggis, and sausages. You get coffee so strong you think you might not sleep for the next four days, while Jake drinks tea that is equal parts sugar, milk, and actual tea.

From the moment you leave the pub to the moment you arrive at your doorstep, Jake’s hands barely leave yours. When they have to, like when you’re searching for the perfect seat on the train or when the controller checks your tickets, they’re back together within a minute, like two magnets that can’t stay apart for too long. The rain has long subsided, leaving place to a bright blue sky and wet blades of grass that shine in the sun. 

Now that your mutual feelings don’t need to be kept secret, you tell each other about everything you had to go through, like you pretending your good news was your mum having baked the cookies Jake liked and him seeing your new boyfriends every two months on your close friends story. He tells you about all the hints he’s dropped, causing you to facepalm over and over again. It feels like two friends catching each other to speed on all the latest gossip, except the topic of that gossip is you.

The juxtaposition of your familiarity with Jake with the novelty of behaving like a couple, of not having to hold back with your touches or gazes or words, is nothing if not jarring. But you have a feeling you’ll get used to it in no time. 

As you unlock the front door to your building, you don’t ask him if he’s coming up - to you, it’s a given that you’ll be spending the rest of today and every day after that together. So when he doesn’t follow you, staying still on the threshold, you turn around with a questioning look on your face. 

“There’s something I need to do this afternoon,” he says, taking both of your hands in his.

“Can’t I come with?” you say. Jake wavers for a second, but sadly, he stays firm in his decision.

“Sorry, baby, it’s a surprise. I’ll be back at seven with takeout?”

You can’t possibly be mad at him when he calls you baby and offers food in the same breath. “Only if you bring takeout.”

“You only love me because I feed you, don’t you?” he asks, a smile on his face.

“Yup,” you reply. You’re standing on a step, so you bend down to kiss him - you intend for it to be a peck, but when your lips touch, you’re unable to pull away. You let yourself get lost in the feeling of his lips on yours, in the warmth that takes over your body and makes your brain all fuzzy. 

A loud, affronted gasp from behind you makes you jump from Jake, and when you turn around, Chaewon and Yunjin are standing in the stairwell, staring at you with wide eyes and gaping mouths. 

“So this was a sexcapade?” is, much to your horror, the first thing Yunjin says.

Thanks to Chaewon, neither you nor Jake have the time to dwell on this sentence as she comes running down the stairs and pounces on you. You don’t know how a woman so small can have such force, but her hug is so tight you can barely breathe, let alone hug her back properly. “I knew you could do it!” she exclaims. When she pulls away, she seems so moved, it looks like she’s about to cry. “You finally popped your Jake cherry,” she whispers, but it’s loud enough for Jake to hear. A bark of laughter escapes his throat.

“Okay, thanks, guys,” you say, escaping this awkward situation and going up the stairs. “I’ll see you later, Jake!” you yell over your shoulder. The girls seem to be on their way out, and you’re more than happy leaving him to deal with them on his own. God knows you’ll get the worst of it when they come back. 

As soon as you get to your flat, you make a beeline for your bedroom, plopping on the bed. You’re the same person, and this is the same room. But something within you feels entirely different, like a scar that you had been carrying around had, without you even noticing, healed so well you could barely see it anymore. You lifted your hands in the air, looked at the back of them, then at your palms. They were the same old hands that had been with you your whole life, and you were almost shocked that there wasn’t something utterly different about them after having held Jake’s hand for so long. Just to be sure, you sniffed your right hand, but it didn’t smell any different, either. But you still felt Jake’s hand on yours, like headphones you’d been wearing for hours and still felt on your ears after taking them off.

Yunjin and Chaewon are back from their shopping half-an-hour later; they got you a chocolate fudge cake from Tesco to congratulate you. “You guys are acting like this is my birthday…” you say, eyeing the cake greedily as Chaewon cuts it into three equal parts (even though it says serves eight on the packaging). 

“This is more important than your birthday, Y/N,” Yunjin states as she pours oat milk into three cups of Earl Grey tea. “This is, like, the moment of a lifetime.”

“Are you saying a girl’s importance depends on her having a boyfriend?”

“Yes, Y/N, that’s exactly what I’m saying. Especially when said boyfriend is the guy she’s been pining after for all of her teenage and adult life.”

You sigh. “Well, he hasn’t exactly popped the boyfriend and girlfriend question yet.” They both turn to look at you, an annoyed look on their faces. You stand up straight, uncomfortable under their gazes. “What?”

“Usually, I’m all for clarity on this issue,” Chaewon starts. “But isn’t it pretty obvious here?”

“You’re still gonna have to tell us everything in minute detail, but Jake’s already told us what happened. He had no qualms referring to you as his girlfriend, so I really don’t think this is something you need to worry about. What you should worry about is when and where you’re going to hop on that dick.”

Chaewon bursts into laughter, and you can’t help but follow suit. “Gosh, Yunjin, you really do have a way with words.”

“I know. This is what having a Jane Austen hyperfixation at fifteen will do to you.”

Following Yunjin’s orders, you tell them about the events of the previous day and this morning over tea and cake. They ooh and ah and gasp in all the right places, ask you very specific questions and even make you draw a picture of the room you stayed in. You’ve talked to them about Jake so many times that there’s only so much to say now - but still, you talk for hours on end, deviating off-topic so often you end up talking about something else entirely. 

You’re in bed reading for your Middle English Literature class when the doorbell rings. It’s seven on the dot, so it can be no one else other than Jake. It’s been mere hours, but you’ve missed him enough to last you for weeks. 

He brought takeaway from the Indian place you’d raved about a hundred times but hadn’t brought him to yet. Somehow, your heart grows even fonder as you watch his reaction to the food, the raise of his eyebrows, the widening of his eyes, the excited shimmy of his shoulders. When you ask him about his afternoon, a wide smile breaks out onto his face, like a lightbulb illuminating a room. Without a word, he scurries to your room, bringing back some sort of book with him. He hands it to you  with a shy smile and curious eyes, eagerly anticipating your reaction. The cover reads Y/N and Jake in his clumsy but endearing handwriting, with the date of his arrival in Edinburgh and an em-dash scribbled underneath. “I haven’t booked my flight home yet, so I’ll add the second date later,” he explains. 

When you flick through it, you’re met with photographs of you and Jake on all of the trips you’ve done so far, as well as the various adventures you got up to in the city. There’s even one of you sleeping in the library at two am during midterms when you had forgotten about one of your essays, due at midday. Jake had come with coffee and words of encouragement, and now he could brag that the high mark you got was thanks to him. It’s not only photos - it’s also ticket stubs, receipts, stickers, and even a dried flower you had found pretty on your trip to St. Andrews. He’s also written quite a lot, from diary-like entries about what you got up to that day or songs that reminded him of you. 

“You misspelt right here,” you say, pointing to a sentence that reads This is the café write next to the hotel where the last Harry Potter book is said to have been written!!! under a photo of you drinking a massive cup of hot chocolate. The more you look at the typo, the more it makes you laugh, until you have tears brimming in your eyes.

Thanks to Yunjin’s messiness, pens and pencils are strewn over your coffee table. Jake, flushed red in embarrassment at the small mistake, snatches a pencil and aggressively erases write, spelling it correctly the second time around. “This is the level of today’s English Lit undergrads,” he murmurs under his breath. His frown disappears when he looks at you and he laughs along.

You continue looking through the album until you land on a page titled Why I love Y/N. From top to bottom, left to right, it’s filled with Jake’s tiny handwriting. You can tell he put effort into making it neat. There’s a singular photograph of you, one that dates from the first days after Jake’s arrival when you were walking around in the Meadows, the park right next to campus. The sun shone down on you and you smiled brightly at Jake behind the camera.  

You’re not a quarter through reading when tears swell in your eyes, rendering your vision blurry. You wipe them away before they can fall and stain the page. Jake has detailed every last thing he loves about you. It can hardly get cornier than this, but the fact that he wrote this about you makes your heart so full, you’re afraid it might explode in your chest. It ranges from basic things like the way she makes me laugh or her pretty face when she falls asleep in the train (or anywhere, for that matter) to more you-specific things like the strict pastel colour-coding she uses for her notes and her perseverance when eating spicy food even though she can’t take it. He mentions things about you that you didn’t even know, and that feeling of being known in-and-out, of being really seen by someone else only brings more tears to your eyes. Your favourite line comes at the end - the way she makes any place feel like home. A proper sob pushes past your lips at this, and Jake, who had been watching you with an anxious smile, rests a palm on your knee and inches closer to you.

“Why are you crying, is- Did I write something bad?”

You shake your head fervently. “No, no, Jakey, this is… It’s perfect. I’m just…” you trail, letting out a half-sob, half-chuckle. You look at him with a smile before pulling him into a tight hug. “I love it so much. I love you so much.”

You can feel Jake relax against you. “I love you too, baby. I’m glad you like it.”

You pull away after a small while, and turn the next page over. It’s a picture of you over breakfast this morning, with words WE’RE DATING!!!! written underneath it, and those simple words make you so happy, your cheeks ache from smiling. But every page after that is empty. Jake scratches the back of his neck. “I, um, I thought we could fill the rest out together. I debated just doing it myself and giving it to you at the end of the year, but I thought it’d be more fun doing it together.”

“It would. This is such an amazing idea,” you say, flicking back through the pages.

“I thought of it because of that project I had. When I started working on it, all the photos I wanted to include were of you, but I wasn’t sure how much my professor would appreciate that… So I decided to make one more personal. One for us,” he says shyly, shrugging like it’s no big deal.

“Thank you so much, Jakey.”

He smiles. “It’s no worries.”

“Did you do it all this afternoon?”

“I had started it before, but I added it most of today, yeah. Which, by the way, awful timing. I wanted nothing more than to spend today with you.”

Your heart leaps. You’re not sure you’ll ever get used to hearing such words from Jake’s mouth.

Sometime later, you’re laying in bed with Jake between your legs, watching the most recent animated Spiderman movie. With the tips of your fingers, you draw random patterns on his forearm, and if it wasn’t for his occasional chuckles, you’d think he had fallen asleep. You chat for a bit after the movie, but you find that after such an emotionally-packed day, you’re ready to call it a night fairly early. But when the lights are off and it’s just you lying against Jake’s chest, his fingernails grazing your scalp and his familiar, comforting scent clouding your judgement, all thoughts of an early night are thrown out of the window.

You shouldn’t feel so nervous - you had fallen asleep in his arms last night, and it had gone well. Really well. 

“This is different from yesterday, isn’t it?” Jake suddenly says, breaking the heavy silence with a low voice. It’s like he read your mind.

“Yeah,” you whisper against his skin.

No other words are needed. You brush the tip of your nose along his neck until you reach his jawline, pressing soft kisses there and delighting in the increasing shakiness of his breath. The feeling of your lips meeting is so intense, so all-encompassing, that you don’t know if you’ll be able to handle anything more.

This is still new territory, but you’re both so eager to discover it that it makes for a messy kiss, lips moving against each other ravenously, tongues beckoning moans from the other. It’s a kiss that somehow leaves you breathless and breathes oxygen back into your lungs at once. 

In a matter of seconds, Jake has flipped you on your back and is hovering over you, one hand holding him up and one hand free to roam your body. He slips it underneath your t-shirt, brushes it along the side of your waist, his touch leaving behind a trail of fire blazing on your skin. It’s so distracting, you can’t even kiss him back properly anymore. Jake doesn’t seem to mind. At first, when he starts pressing hot kisses to your jawline and your neck, you think he’s giving you a respite - but when he gently sinks his teeth into the skin there, leaving marks that will later remind you tonight wasn’t a dream, chuckling as you squirm and whine under him, you understand that this is anything but a respite. 

You curse your earlier decision of not wearing a bra, because it gives you no preparation whatsoever to the sensation of Jake brushing his thumb against one of your nipples. With a loud gasp, your back arches off of the bed, which only aids Jake in raising your t-shirt up over your breasts. 

He takes a minute to admire the sight of you panting and half-naked underneath him. It makes you feel shy, and you want to do something so that he stops looking and starts doing, but his gaze holds you in place. His pupils are blown with lust, eyes raking over your body and taking everything in. You have a hard time wrapping your head around the fact that it’s you he’s looking at with those eyes. 

His soft lips attach themselves to your nipple while his fingers continue their work on the other one. You’ve never felt this sensitive, never felt this on edge, like you might fall apart at any second even with so little simulation. Your core throbs, impatiently waiting to be tended to, but you’re already trembling so hard from Jake’s attention to your breasts that you don’t know what will happen to you once he actually touches you down there.

“You doing okay, baby?” he asks, the rasp in his voice making you want him impossibly more. You grip his hair and he looks up at you, a tender smile on his lips. You nod your head yes and he laughs. “Yeah? You want more?” You pause at his question. You do want more, but is it worth your sanity?

It takes you a second to decide that it’s worth that and more. You nod again. 

Jake seems to have sensed your hesitation. He tucks a strand of hair behind your ear. “You sure you’re okay?”

“I am. It’s just a lot.”

His expression of worry softens into a smile. “I’ll take it slow for you, love. It’s a lot for me, too.” He leans in to press soft kisses to your cheek, and some of the tension in your body diffuses. Whatever happens, Jake will be there to take care of you. “But it feels good, right?” he asks, lips moving against your ear, sending shivers down your spine.

“So good, Jakey,” you reply shakily.

“Good.”

You can tell that Jake really does want to take it slow - his movements are more deliberate, gentler. But eagerness, both yours and his, soon takes over, and a minute later, he’s trailing kisses down your body until he reaches your lower stomach. Your breath quickens as he hooks fingers underneath your leggings and underwear, sliding both garments down your legs and leaving you bare to him. You think the feeling of his lips on the fleshy parts of your inner thighs is what might actually do you in, make you lose your sense of reality forever - but then his tongue darts out against your clit, a barely-there touch, and your whole body flatlines. 

Your reaction eggs Jake on, who, more confident now, takes the sensitive bud in his lips and alternates between sucking and licking motions. A knot ties itself embarrassingly quickly in your stomach, a knot that tightens and tightens as Jake flattens his tongue against you, licking up your juices from your entrance to your clit; a knot that threatens to come loose when he slides a long finger inside of you. You can’t take more than thirty seconds of this.

“Jakey,” you say, voice practically a moan. Your brain is fuzzy and it takes a distressing amount of time to form a simple sentence. “Can you come here?”

“Is something wrong, baby?” he asks breathily, sliding his finger out of you and coming back up so that his face is right above yours. 

“No, just… I want you.”

Any trace of worry on Jake’s features dissipates as he cocks an eyebrow, one corner of his lips tugging up into a smirk. “Is that so?”

This kind of boldness would usually have you rolling your eyes, but here, it only makes your core throb more violently. It’s almost humiliating how much you want this man. It’s definitely humiliating, how easy it is to swallow your pride and play into his game. “Yes, please,” you say, eyes pleading with him.

He smiles almost giddily before burying his face against the side of yours. “My baby’s so polite,” he says, pressing a kiss to your cheek. “I’ll give you whatever you want.”

“Take this off, then,” you say, grabbing the bottom hem of his t-shirt. 

“So she says please and gives orders,” he jokes, quickly obliging anyway. 

Not once in your time apart had Jake posted any sort of beach trip or pool photos, so this was the first time you saw his bare chest. God, was it one for the history books. You trace the defined lines of his muscles with a finger and wonder how he had managed to get even more perfect. He lets you marvel at him for it, clearly proud that you’re gawking so shamelessly, but your mind drifts back to more urgent matters when he presses himself into you, his clothed cock, hard and hot, brushing against your folds. “Fuck,” you sigh, bucking your hips into his to feel him over and over again.

It’s so much, but it’s not enough; Jake instantly gets your message when you hook your fingers under the waistband of his boxers, pulling him to you and kissing him feverishly. Your lips don’t part as he slides his boxers off, and you drink up the nectar that are his moans as you take him in your hand, pumping him a few times.

“Condom?” he asks, but you shake your head.

“I’m on the pill. And even so… I usually always use a condom, but I don’t want to now. Not with you.”

Jake closes his eyes as he takes a deep, stabilising breath. “I feel totally normal about that. Not crazy at all.”

You giggle, and he opens his eyes, a wide smile gracing his lips before he bends down to kiss you. “You ready for the night of your life?” he asks against your lips. “It’s gonna last five minutes, tops,” he says, making you laugh again. “I’m sorry, baby, I can’t do anything about it. I think I could’ve cum just from eating you out.”

“That would’ve been hot.”

“Really? We’ll make it a challenge for next time, then.”

When Jake plunges into you, it’s unlike anything you’ve ever felt before. He fills you up, slow inch by slow inch, until he’s buried to the hilt inside you. You both need some time getting used to the feeling - Jake drops his head in the crook of your neck and lets out a sound between a grunt and a moan, something you’ve never heard from him before. You grab onto his shoulders, fingernails digging into his skin as you try to tether yourself to him. You hold him so tight that he has no choice but to let his body rest on top of yours, his arms coming to circle your waist and bring you even closer. 

His movements start out halting, the pleasure so overwhelming that it makes it hard for him to move steadily. In time, he falls into a torturously slow rhythm, but it’s the perfect kind of torture, the kind that has tears brimming in your eyes. It’s so hard to take, and yet you want more. You’re brought closer to the edge with every thrust of his dick into you, especially as he picks up the pace and lifts your hips to meet his. The new angle has his tip brushing against that spot deep inside you that makes it hard to breathe. 

You can tell he’s just as close as you when he loses that steady rhythm he had found, his motions growing more desperate, harsher, quicker. Conscious of your roommates, you slap a hand over your mouth to muffle your moans as your orgasm washes over you, your whole body on fire, so sensitive that the few more seconds Jake needs to come undone himself drive both your body and your mind into overstimulation. Even the feeling of him pulling out, drops of hot liquid dripping out of your entrance, is too much and makes you let out a small, tired whine. 

Jake peppers your face with kisses as he holds your waist tightly, brushing his thumb back-and-forth on your warm skin, sticky with sweat. “You did so well, baby. So good for me.” You think you might be ready for a second round if he keeps talking to you like that. “I love you so much.”

You sigh deeply, as if you were just told disconcerting news. “Okay.”

“Okay?!” he echoes, looking up at you with an outraged expression on his face.

“I’m sorry, I love you too, I just- I’m not used to this yet! You can’t just tell me you love and expect me to be normal. You have to warn me first.”

“Can I just warn you now that I’m going to tell you I love you every time I get the chance?”

You sigh. “I guess.” 

“Can I tell you now?” he asks, and you hum. “I love you.”

“I love you more.”

Jake tuts. “I highly doubt it, but whatever makes you happy.”

You hold Jake close to you, one arm around his shoulders and the other hand playing with his hair as you come down from your high. You think he might’ve fallen asleep, and you’re close to drifting off yourself when he speaks. “You have no idea how long I’ve wanted to do this. Not just the sex, although that has been on my mind for a while now,” he says, making you laugh, “but all of this. Being together, getting to be in your arms like this, kissing you whenever I want. Calling you my girlfriend.”

“Me too, Jakey. I waited so long I didn’t think it would ever happen.”

Jake chuckles. “How stupid were we not to have noticed we felt the same way?”

“Very stupid. I think we felt so sorry for ourselves that we were stuck in one-sided love, that we didn’t even realise the other was going through the exact same thing. But at least we’re now.”

“At least we’re here now.” You and Jake yawn at the exact same time, making you burst into giggles, giddy with sleep and love.

“Let’s sleep, baby,” you say.

Jake hums, burying himself deeper against your body. “Sleep well, my love. I’ll be here.”

--

After years of pining after each other, you and Jake find it a bit hard to keep your relationship to yourselves, or your hands off of each other.

At the beginning, all of your friends had been happy for you, but that quickly went away when your and Jake’s honeymoon phase never died down and the PDA just kept on going. If the glue you were stuck with previously was metaphorical, this one was pretty close to being real. Superglue kept you together, your moments together rarely spent without some sort of physical touch. Yunjin fake-gagged so often, you were afraid she might actually vomit one of these days. It took Sunghoon two weeks longer than everyone else to clock you and Jake had started dating.

This meant that in private, there was truly no holding back. Jake back-hugged you any chance he got, to the point you started to think he was more koala than human - although that’d imply he saw you as a tree. Make-out sessions were a particular favourite of yours - how could they not be when your boyfriend’s lips seemed to have been carved by God himself, soft and plump to the heavens, like they were made to be kissed. Really, you were just honouring God’s will when you kissed Jake.  

The goodbye that comes at the end of the year is not an easy one, and the month spent at home before you fly to Korea seems to never end. But you get there eventually, and as nice as it is to catch up with Jake’s parents after so long, you feign sleepiness after lunch as an excuse to get some time alone with your boyfriend. Ironically, this “time alone” is spent so intensely that you do end up falling asleep afterwards. 

You have to admit, you really did a number on your boyfriend this time - what can a girl do when she missed her boyfriend this much? Jake is still passed out when you wake up from your nap, so you slip out as discreetly as you can from his embrace and get out of bed. You head for the closet first and swipe the comfiest looking sweater of his that you find there so you can stay warm as you look around his room. A pang of melancholia hits your chest - most of the pictures and objects on his walls and shelves are parts of his life you weren’t around to witness. Friends you don’t recognize, places you’ve never heard of, phases you’d never known he’d gone through. But then you see the frame on his desk, a faded photo of the two of you at ten years of age, eating ice cream on the bench outside of your house. Milo is sitting at your feet. Jake’s family hadn’t adopted Layla yet. You realise that even if there’s whole parts of your life you didn’t get to share with each other, nothing could touch your memories, or your future.

You want to go back in time and tell fourteen-year-old you that no matter how painful it might seem at the moment, it will all be worth it for the sight of Jake Sim slowly drifting into wakefulness, patting the bed next to him, and noticing you’re missing with furrowed eyebrows. When he opens his eyes and they settle on you, a sleepy smile will grace his dazzling features, and he’ll say, “Come back to bed.”

You’ll be even more in love at twenty than at fourteen.

permanent taglist: @zreamy @sunghoonmybeloved @lalalalawon @sd211 @w3bqrl @raikea10 @wntrnghts @moonlighthoon @4imhry @rikisly @loves0ft @iamliacamila @theboingsuckerasseater9000 @chaechae-23 @baekhyuns-lipchain @hyuckslvr @vernonburger @amorbonbon @fluerz (ask to be removed/added!)

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[nathaslosthershit]

“Notice me” “Beg for it" (LN4)

Summary: After what feels like centuries of back and forth flirting, Lando and his Mclaren teammate have tired people out with their inaction to do something about their very obvious crushes. Aka the 5 times they confused fans with their interactions + the one time they made everything clear (SMAU)

Part of my summer event! Warnings: Zak Brown, Reader sort of takes Oscar’s place? Also the timeline on this is weird sorry

mclaren

liked by georgerussell63, landonorris, and others

mclaren Proud to announce our official driver lineup for the next season as yourusername joins the McLaren family🧡! Can’t wait to see her and Lando in action next season👊🎊

username1 oh I am about to be unbearable once we get more content with these two

username2 i have no one i can tell about this

mclaren guess how we felt having to keep it a secret!

zbrownceo welcome to the family yourusername!

yourusername happy to be here!!!

yourusername Thank god the news is finally out, you all don’t know how hard it was to not scream it from the rooftops once I signed my contract

landonorris Wouldn’t want anyone else as a teammate 👊

yourusername I would

landonorris wasn’t what you were saying earlier

landonorris “oh Lando, what a dream come true to drive alongside you, I’ll be such a good teammate you’ll forget all about Carlos-whats-his-face and the other old guy”

danielricciardo why am I catching strays?

yourusername you’re saying I haven’t made a pretty good impression? Maybe I should have stayed at Alpine…

landonorris definitely not saying that, please don't leave

username3 the vibe between these two is off-

yourusername

liked by landonorris, mclaren, and others

yourusername P3! My highest yet 👊! What a blast this year has been so far and we have still got a couple races to go! While I could talk about how thrilled I am with my first podium in F1, it wouldn’t be right to not mention my teammate’s spectacular race, earning him his first F1 win. So happy I could be on the podium right next to you, Lando, to celebrate your first (of many) wins! 🎉

username1 they sure do put every other duo to shame with how much they support each other

username2 Lando’s win was amazing but my god I would rather talk about her overtakes

landonorris always the best supporter 👊

f1gossip

liked by 15,158 others

f1gossip Spotted: landonorris and yourusername seem to be spending quite a lot of time together on their summer break! While most teammates like to take this time to get away from the people they work with every day, these two seem to do the opposite, getting quite comfy with each other while on a eurotrip together.

username1 they can’t do this to me oh my god

username2 completely unprofessional in my opinion! They are coworkers they should not be vacationing together, especially since they are wearing revealing outfits at the beach. Disgusting how much this sport has changed

username3 you will live i swear its not that big a deal

username4 usually id argue against getting into drivers' business but it does seem inappropriate to be going to the beach and having dinner alone with your teammate…

username5 dont know who i am more jealous of tbh

username6 im sorry do you people not want them to get along?

yourusername

liked by zbrownceo, carlossainz, and others

yourusername team meetings and court (mclaren) ordered teammate bonding

username1 lando norris make it less obvious how in love with your teammate you are challenge (impossible)

zbrownceo I don’t think we ordered any bonding, you guys are close enough already. Maybe I will file a restraining order between you two so you guys stop distracting one another?

landonorris sorry boss 😞

yourusername boo you are no fun old man

zbrownceo want to rethink that last comment yourusername?

yourusername we promise we won’t distract each other as much, Mr. ZakBrownCEO

landonorris notice me

yourusername beg for it

carlossainz you both may be happy now but just wait until he replaces you with a fancy new teammate and forgets all about you

yourusername stop being a diva

landonorris

liked by 53,836 others

landonorris Going into today I wasn't expecting the technical failure that would cause us to have to retire the car. Because it wasn’t an easy day for me by any means, id much rather take the time to congratulate my favorite person on her first Formula 1 win. Seeing you grow from your rookie season till now has been such a wonderful thing to witness. Its even better to be by your side while you do it. No one is more deserving of this win. Congrats on your first (of many) wins :) 

username1 he is so in love i am sick

username2 who do they think they are fooling

usernamer3 so sorry to see you dnf 😢but glad to see you are in bright spirits

yourusername Lando 😭 such an incredible day and an even better celebration afterwords. Thanks for being by my side all this time, I couldn’t have done it without you

landonorris we both know damn well you would be just as successful, maybe even more considering how much of a distraction I am for you 😉

yourusername the only thing distracting about you is your stupid face and annoying personality

landonorris I guess you are just spewing out a bunch of lies today huh?

username4 they are already hot rich drivers why do they get to be in love too? 

username5 fr leave some happiness for the rest of us

yourusername

liked by 97,839 others

yourusername yes, we know you all knew this but let us have this moment please

username1 oh my god what a shock 🙄

username2 how will we ever get over this news🙄

username3 how could they have deceived us for so long

username4 nah i can’t even pretend like this is breaking news.

yourusername I knew it was a rumor but I wasn’t expecting everyone to know 😀

landonorris I always thought we were kind of discreet about it…

username5 are you kidding? It would be less obvious if you guys held up signs that said “we are in love”

[xxkiller-muffinxx]

I'll always be there for you

Clay x inventor! reader

Summary: You are an inventor from Putt Putt Village. Using the golf course for building things that can aid the trolls. You were the best! Until you moved to Pop village, where you have to impress all of the trolls to make a good first impression. Then with the help of Clay’s affirmations you wind up doing just that

Words: 1009

Warnings: All of this is fluff

A/N: I admit it, I hated trying to figure out Clays character without having to watch the movie again. I have watched so many videos just trying to get it right and it's been likean earworm, tearing me apart from the inside out. That's why at some point it feels a little more headcanony than other parts. (we dont get enough of Clay honestly.) Anyway this was fun to write, I can't wait for you all to read it! Happy New year everyone!

❉❊❉

You groaned as you came out from under the machine. It’s a machine that doubles glitter. It was just to be a little in spirit of returning to troll society, but it’s turning out to be the hardest machine you’ve ever worked on.

You dust glitter off your arms and adjust your clothing. A part of you feels embarrassed to be working on a glitter machine like this. You have so many other projects and your working on this to be cool to other trolls? You’re close to giving up when-

“Hey! I’ve been looking for you! I asked around town and- What. Is. That.” Clay stopped in his tracks as he pointed to the large (but not too large) glitter-covered machine. You sigh and brush yourself off, inherently spreading more glitter.

You cover your face in embarrassment. “No, it’s nothing, just a thing I’ve been working on.” You say, not expecting Clay of all people to show up suddenly and notice your big “surprise.” Your cheeks flushing a deep shade of red.

Before you could protest, Clay was already inspecting the machine.

“Clay-”

“It’s a party machine!”

“Clay, don't do this.”

“Or it’s a…sun bathing machine.”

“You’re not serious please just-”

“Ooooor it’s a Glitter doubler machine that doubles one piece of glitter into hundreds more.” Clay look at you as if he was correct and you groaned in embarrassment. He walked over to you and stood next to you. “Can’t hide anything from me, you know this. What’s wrong?”

You frown, crossing your arms. “I feel like I’m doing too much to impress these new Trolls, I mean glitter machine? Someone has to have already made that.” You say as you nervously bite your nails. Clay’s arm wraps around your neck and pulls you into his shoulder.

You lean into him, grumbling your grumbles that he loves so much. Clay shrugs slightly. “Well, if you’re doing too much than…they’d want you to do more.” Clay sends you a serious look and you instantly recoil, he can’t be serious. Clay interjects your thoughts “I know it sounds crazy but have you met Viva’s sister? She’s crazy when it comes to going big or going home. She never goes home.”

You snorted at the sentiment, but looked at your invention and frowned. “But what if it explodes when showing off? That defeats the purpose! Everyone will hate me for sure.” You we’re becoming a nervous wreck the more you thought about it,

Clay’s hand went over your temples, beginning to rub gently at them to stop any sights of an inventor's headache. “Okay okay, bring it back down. There you are.” He said, nipping your chin with his thumb and index finger. You laughed, mostly because your neck was ticklish, but also because you blush hard ever time he does it.

Clay looked you in the eyes and crossed his arms. “Let’s think about disasters; after you build it huh?” He offered, you rolled your eyes and he clicked his tongue at you. “That’s my girl, now let’s get to work!”

✩✪✩✪✩

Now, you stood next to clay for your first test. When suddenly, glitter sputtered out the sides and the top. You groaned. Clay then pointed out that it's doing one thing they wanted, but not another. “Okay, we're doing something right and something wrong.” You look at the machine and feel a sense a pride in it now.

“Okay, well, obviously it's something on the sides. I have to cover those up somehow.” You'd deduce and giggle when Clay made a mock surprised face. “Alright let's do it!”

✩✪✩✪✩

You laid on the ground stomach full after Viva brought you French fries and meat circles. You were halfway to a food coma when Clay asked “This isn't just about the machine right, the change is hitting you too?” he asked, looking at you with worried eyes.

You just nodded. “I understand change is hard, but this? This is crazy. Moving entirely out of Putt Putt Village for this? It's enough to make your skin crawl.”

“Well just so you know your are not the only one, every other troll is in some kind of tiff about it too. I mean I had to give up my admin house.”

“You hated living in that thing.”

“Quite the contrary, it was actually delectable beyond reasoning.”

“You always do the voice when I'm right. Just admit it alright?”

“Nothing to admit.”

“I sometimes hate that I love you.”

✩✪✩✪✩

Finally, the moment had come, everything fell into place. You decided the go big or go home approach would be best. So now you had a small glitter volcano, it's small, adorable, and simple. However its just big enough to where you can't go home.

Surprise surprise, everyone adored it. Glitter trolls have already been caught bathing in it, but you only build the machines, you don't monitor them. You are in Poppy’s pod getting a mouthful about how great that glitter-cano is. Then when you came out you got more compliments! It wasn't until you and Floyd were eating lunch together that Clay even asked. “So, did everyone like the-”

“YES! They loved It! They all loved it so much that they told me they liked it and I've never felt greater!” You squealed as you looked at the pin Poppy had given you. It wasn't much, it just said “You did it!” even then you still were pretty stoked.

Clay smiled. Leaning on his hand as he looked at you. “That's awesome! I'm so proud of you.” he reached across the table to offer a high five, and you smirked and took his hand. He was confused until you pulled him to meet you in the middle to accept a kiss on the forehead.

He slapped a hand onto his forehead and you laughed softly. “Thank you for being my number one Clay.” Clay admittedly blushed, but he'd never say that he did. He waved a hand.

“It's nothing, you know I'll always be here for you.”

[homesickformb]

Roommate hamzah! You guys live together as flirty friends but one night break and hookup

im a minor so im not comfortable writing any smut about anyone! 😭 so i won't be writing anything smut ever!! if you request something with anything sexual in it, i won't be mad, but ill turn it into something sfw! so sorry if that's what yall wanted to see!!

btw can someone tell me the difference between hc, blurbs, etc. just wanna use the correct wording!!

(okay last p.s., still working on a format. if anyone has any tips, suggestions, or anything like that, please tell me i need help figuring everything out on here. i'm fairly new to tumblr!!)

PART 1 / idfk how many parts this is gonna be 😭

you and hamzah have been friends for a while now.

you were both on 4freakshow (pretend it had 5 people) but we all know that came to an end. you and hamzah are th eonly two people who stayed friends after the podcast ended.

you lived in NY and were visting hamzah so much it was costing you so much money.

one time you were vistng, you guys got high, and hamzah threw out the idea

"y/n, why dont you just move in with me?" he said while looking out at the streets form his balcony

you released your hit and waited a moment. you had never thought of that.

you guys sat in silence for a little while you thought about everything, from how you guys were gonna split the rent and bills to how it would affect your guys friendship.

would you guys argue? would you guys get in such a bad argument that it ended your friendship?

that was the last thing that you wouldve wanted to happen. but you didnt know why you didnt want that to happen.

you tried to convince yourself thta it was because hamzah had been your friend for the longest, and who would want to give that up?!

but you knew deep down, that there was another reason.

you always though hamzah was fine. but you tried to push those feelings down by saying that maybe he was a catfish on zoom for the podcast.

but once you finally saw him in person, you immediatly knew he was not a catfish.

for a while it was just physical attration, until you found yourself practically crying when you left his apartment for the airpoart when you had to go home.

hamzah had snapped you out of your thoughts.

" you okay? sorry if that made you uncomfortable "

you were not aware of how deep in thought you were. what the fuck is in this weed?

" no no, it didnt make me uncomfortable. just thinking about it. "

" okay. " he waited a second. "you know you can think about it for a few days. its a big decision. "

" i dont need to think about it any longer, im gonna do it. "

you saw hamzahs eyes light up

you guys spent the rest of the night planning everything out

you guys knew that the pets werent gonna be an issue, as peter and your dog got along great all the time.

hamzah planned to move all his stuff out of the office and have you move in there.

you guys were so fixated on it, that you guys pulled an all nighter finding stuff for your room and planning

when you guys saw that there was daylight outside, you decided to put on a movie, hopping it would keep you two awake for the remainder of the time until you could go get energy drinks and breakfast,

around 20 minutes in, hamzah fell asleep on your shoulder.

you only lasted about 10 more minutes and then you were alseep too

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

i hope you guys liked it!! this is my second time writing anything in about 2 years so i might need to do some brushing up.

let me know if you want to see anything specific in the next part (hamzah helping you move in, or straight into you and hamzah starting to flirt and catch feelings for eachother)

[forgetmynamepleasethanks]

IF YOU write for hazbin x helluva boss could you do a oneshot stolas x raven!reader whos family only recently became royals and are treated as lesser by the other royal families. the ravens arent as fancy as the other families and dont really care about all the royal stuff so they're kinda looked down upon. they meet at some meeting or you can decide. and make this take place after season 2 episode 9 so blitzo and him have broken up at least for now. thank you a ton!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I write for everything. That's why it takes me so long to write because I get a request, watch the entire show/consume the entire source material, then I start writing until I get a new request and the cycle continues. I am the Sisyphus of fanfiction. One must imagine forgetmyname happy. Anyways. Thank you for the request. I needed an excuse to watch season 2 of Helluva Boss. And shoutout to my favorite mutual for inspo for this I lowkey stole major plot elements from your story please forgive me. They're a better writer than I am so if you're interested in reading the inspiration for the latter half of this fic check out this. Also this isn't particularly romantic, just two straight guy cool guy besties (peak reference).

-----

If the parties weren't bad enough, the meetings were. Was being a royal really worth it? Sure, immortality, woo. How nice it is to spend the next ten thousand years sucking up to other pompous avians.

Despite your less-than-enthusiastic outlook on royalty, being the youngest of your brothers made you the prime target for all the busy work one could hope for.

That's why you found yourself here. Due to your family's relative youth in terms of royalty, you're positioned to the very far end of an uncomfortably long table seating representatives from all the royal houses in hell.

What a bunch of pricks.

The etiquette that your parents had drilled into you from such a young age- you truly believe they conceived you to be the perfect little delivery boy to turn errands for them- is the only thing keeping you in your seat and this stuffy cape and outfit on your body.

After a wait that could have lasted from 15 minutes to 15 years, the host of this meeting finally makes his entrance. As much as you like to pride yourself in your blasé attitude, being in the presence of King Paimon is enough to shut you up and sit you down.

"Welcome everyone please stop your yammering and listen to me. God when did there get to be so fucking many of you." Paimon announces as he makes his entrance.

"As I'm sure a few of you know hell is currently experiencing some unfortunate economic... blah blah blah"

Could this get any more boring? As you fight to keep your eyes in focus you notice someone standing by the door behind you. It's one of Paimon's sons. Stolas. Long time no see. You and Stolas used to be close, but the weight of royalty split you two apart.

Wow, he looks just as bored as you. I guess being Paimon's son would mean you get dragged along to a lot of borin- "You! Raven boy. Not to be rude or anything but what do you people even do?" Your internal monologue is cut off by Paimon. You don't respond for a beat, internally laughing at how Paimon literally doesn't know who you are or what your family does but you still have to be at this stupid meeting.

"We keep the humans out of hell, Your Highness." You respond dryly. It takes you a second to even notice that you've responded. The line is so ingrained into your lexicon that it practically says itself.

"Right! That's the totally important job I gave your very... snicker... esteemed family." Paimon snorts out, barely containing his mocking laughter. A handful of other representatives stifle laughs at your expense.

Oh, the joys of being a Corvus Arcana. The least royal royal family in hell.

"Yes well, you're dismissed. You're needed for other important tasks. Prince Stolas will direct you. Thank you for your time." Paimon says with mock sincerity.

Oh. Stolas. Yes. You know Stolas. You're flooded with memories of the two of you back at the old "Center for Princes to be" It was a glorified daycare, really. You two got up to a lot. He taught you a lot about the starts, and bugs, and everything he read about. You taught him how to make spit balls and get out of trouble you put yourself in.

You rise from your seat, flipping your cape as you walk to the door. In royal etiquette flipping your cape at someone is somewhat rude. Exactly what you wanted.

The conversation behind you restarts as you reach the door. Stolas is waiting for you with a nervous smile on his face, almost like he's got bad news.

"Ah, I remember you! I didn't know it was you who my father was talking about! Let's head out, shall we?" Stolas remarks oh so professionally. He's looking right at you, using his eyes to try and convince you he's excited about your new task, but you know him well enough to tell he'd rather be anywhere else right now.

"To what do I owe the pleasure?" you respond sarcastically. Both of you know you were chosen for this because of your less-than-stellar family image.

"Ah! Well! You see- You were chosen for your... unique skills and inspired professionalism! Yes of course!" Stolas sputters out trying to respond without admitting that you were chosen because you're the trailer park trash of the royal family.

A smile creeps onto your face at the owl's half-baked response. He was never the most socially perceptive, even in his youth. You follow the tall owl out of the meeting room and down some of the winding hallways of Paimon's manor.

"Well hopefully my 'inspired professionalism' landed me something to do besides sitting in that room. How bad could it be? As long as it's not something stupid like stacking boxes." You respond lackadaisically. You look to Stolas for a reaction but he seems fully focused on looking at some dusty old paintings on the wall.

Then you round a corner into a freshly moved into bedroom. So fresh that boxes are strewn about. You look up at Stolas who's scratching the back of his head and looking anywhere and everywhere but your direction.

"No way. It's stacking boxes." You state dumbfounded.

"If it's any recourse I will be helping you unpack. That's our mission. Isn't that... heh... fun?" Stolas replies. You look him up and down. Both of you know how stupid this is.

You just sigh.

Twenty minutes later you're unpacking boxes. Your cape is discarded on the bed, the effort of moving boxes with both magic and your birdy body causing you to break a sweat, and as promised Stolas is helping. You can't help but sneak glances at him. He really has changed a lot since you were kids. He's a lot taller for one thing. Besides the obvious physical change, he seems to never have really put himself together. You can tell he's struggling.

Ruffled feathers, quick to anger, and somewhat mopey. To an average royal this would seem pretty normal. Royals aren't known for their vigor and lust for life. To you, these are signs that he's not doing so hot. Struggling to lift a white cardboard box labeled "FRAGILE!" the tall owl is surprisingly human- well, demon? Humanized? He seems a lot more likable than the rest of the royals.

You decide to break the silence. "So tell me. What's a big important bird like you doing unpacking boxes with lil old me?" It's almost self-deprecating the way you look down on yourself.

"Me?- Ah of course he means you- My father brings me along as a secretary of sorts to his meetings when I'm available." Stolas responds while trying to not trip over a box of pillows as he places knickknacks he got out of a box around the dresser.

You snort at his response. "I have a secretary but she doesn't unpack rooms." You banter at him. This seems to irk Stolas. "Yes well since my divorce it seems my father can't resist the urge to assign me silly tasks as if I were some child in need of a distraction." Stolas snaps at you. He drops his volume at the mention of his divorce, which has surely affected how he is perceived by the other royals.

Despite how peeved he sounds by your comment, it sounds more like he's disheartened than truly upset.

You had heard of his divorce. You didn't care. Your family was never huge on the whole arranged marriage thing. You weren't even married yet, which for a prince of your age was unheard of in most other families.

You smile, half sympathetically, half filled with schadenfreude. "Join the club." An uncomfortable silence fills the air after your response. Stolas was aware of how your family is treated. It seemed silly to complain about being assigned trivial tasks like unpacking a room to a Corvus Arcana. It's sort of like complaining about a paper cut to a man missing both his arms.

"I apologize," Stolas says.

"For what?" You respond quizzically. "For how the others treat you. Merely because your lineage is young does not justify the lack of respect or meaningful assignments they've received from the other royals." Stolas says.

The uncomfortable silence fills the air once again. Stolas had always been the only person to treat you like a true royal. Back in the day, he was the only one to play with you, share with you, or even really acknowledge you. You two unpack in silence. After another ten minutes of unpacking you finally can't take it anymore.

"This blows. Wanna ditch this stupid "assignment"?" You stretch your arms and let the box you were carrying fall to the ground with a thump. Stolas looks at you dumbfounded.

"Ditch? Like... 'play hooky'? No... I could never! I'm much to old for that type of behavior now." Stolas seems aghast at the idea of offending his father. You turn around and grin at him. "Oh like anyone's gonna miss us! There's a million servants around here that can unpack this dumb room. Let's ditch this. Or are you gonna tell me you're having a blast?"

"That's not the point. I can't just leave!" Stolas retorts.

"You're an adult now. Plus King Paimon clearly doesn't care what we're up to. No one's checked on us. C'mon, we used to do this all the time. It'll be like back then when we used to sneak away from the nannies at daycare." You rebuttal. You can see Stolas fighting with himself over what to do.

The look on Stolas' face is priceless. There's nothing quite like a royal trying to decide if it's worth doing something considered "non-royal".

"I suppose it's okay to leave unannounced... I read something about the human country of Ireland and how its people say goodbye without saying anything and-" Stolas realizes he's rambling. "Ah well... yes. I guess I'd like to leave."

You shake your head in mock surprise at his overly introspective response. "Follow me."

You two walk in silence for a moment. You're spending the quiet time considering your current circumstances. You and the prince of the Ars Goatia are playing hooky from a meeting neither of you were really invited to. Huh. Interesting spot you've found yourself in.

Conversely, Stolas is trying his best to keep his cool. He's not so used to just leaving these types of things. You two have also not spoken much since you were young. There was never any bad blood or anything, being a royal is just time-consuming.

Stolas follows closely behind you as you walk out of the castle. "So... if you don't mind me asking..." Stolas begins, waiting for your confirmation to continue. After a quick nod from you, Stolas furrows his brow, contemplating his words before speaking, "Your..." He pauses, searching for a diplomatic way to phrase it. "casual demeanor seems almost at odds with your status as a royal. It's always been quite intriguing, I must say. Most other royals tend to carry themselves with a certain..." He gestures with a hand. "formality, shall we say. Your informal manner is indeed a rare sight." Stolas asks you.

The owl's attempts at not offending you are admirable. "Well. My family is much younger than yours, as you know. While your family and all the others gained power at the very start of hell my family rose to power a short three hundred years ago. To put it bluntly, we don't really do all the royal stuff." You respond, trying to explain your family's situation.

"I see... fascinating." Stolas offers. The two of you make it out of the castle without another word.

You two find yourselves behind the castle. You hop up on a small ledge to see over the hedges. Stolas, being tall, can see over just fine.

"Well. The world's our oyster." You say. The night is fresh upon you and the city shines spectacularly below you. You look up at Stolas with a mischievous grin. "How quickly would your dad notice if his fancy schmancy car went missing?"

Stolas snickers at your question. "We'll just have to find out I suppose."

-----

I don't really like how this turned out but I also feel like I say that after everything I write. I'm also pretty rusty (and slightly intoxicated). Life has been up my ass for like two years so that's where I've been. Once again, massive props to freakyfrye for a lot of inspiration behind this. I had no clue where to take it but I read their story and it was great! Worth checking out. Anyways I hope you enjoyed.

[valhallie]

Pregnant teen reader x Dazai

warnings:mentions of sex, underage drinking, and teen pregnancy, and mention of suicide.

You had been taken in by Mori when you were around 12-13.You had been bored there until you became friends with two other teenage executives Dazai Osamu and Nakahara Chuuya.

Eventually you found yourself catching feelings for Dazai.You tried to push the feelings away, until one night he showed up at your apartment drunk as hell.”Dazai? What the hell man it’s 3 o’clock in the morning.”

“Sorry Y/N but I missed youuu…There’s something I wanna try before I die y/n and only you can help with it.”

“W-what are you talking about Dazai?” You knew exactly why he was talking about.Sex.But you were so young and it was wrong.But the second he kissed you all of that went to shit.You woke up in the morning and he was gone.It hurt but despite that you two continued to have sex with him and it became a normal routine for you two.

Until one day.You saw him bring another girl into his office.You two weren’t exactly together but it still hurt.You decided to go to the one other person you cared about.”Huh?Y/N what are you doing here?” The ginger stared at you,worried.

“I just need someone to be with Chuuya.Please.”he nodded “Of course come on in.Two hours later you were both plastered drunk.    “Hey Chuuya?” “Yeah?” “Can we have sex?” His face turned RED when you said those words.”Huh?”

“I wanna have sex with you.” Normally he’d be hesitant but being so drunk he just pinned you down and started kissing you.The next morning you woke up with your head hurting terribly.Chiuya was gone but you opened up your phone to find a text from him saying “I’m sorry Mori-San called me in early and I didn’t want to wake you.” You were at first upset but at least he left for a reason unlike Dazai.

       Over the past few weeks you began to throw up every morning.You feared the worst.You went to Kouyou and talked to her about it and she suggested you take pregnancy test.So after you got off work you went to the market and bought a packet of tests and took one.About 5 minutes later you read the words Pregnant.You couldn’t believe it so you decided to take another test.It came back also positive.16 and pregnant.”God how did I get myself into this mess?” You thought.

Since Chuuya was your most recent sexual partner you decided to tell him first.”Are you sure it’s me?” He asked nervously.”Well no.It could also very well be Dazai but I haven’t told him anything yet so keep your mouth shut okay?”

A few weeks later you were at the doctors and found out who the father was.Dazai Osamu. You showed up at Chuuya’s apartment.”I got good news for ya Chuu.You’re not the dad.”Chuuya seemed relieved but also worried for you knowing how Dazai was.Be careful Y/N.

       When you finally built up the courage to tell Dazai you received a phone call from Mori saying Dazai had betrayed the organization and left the Port Mafia.You were shocked and heartbroken.A single mom at 16.You hated Dazai.Even though he had no idea.

        7 years later…..

He grabbed your wrist.”Yukio!”

That’s when Hana slapped his hand away.”DONT TOUCH MY MOMMY MOTHER FUCKER!” You looked down at your daughter.         “Hana!Who taught you that word?” You glared. “Uncle Chuuya!” Dazai laughed “Sounds like him.”You glared at him. “Come on Hana let’s go home baby.” “Wait Yukio!” Dazai followed you out to your car.”What do you need Osamu?” He looked dead serious. “Yukio tell me the truth.Is she mine?”You sighed. You knew you couldn’t lie to him.Dazai always saw right through you.”Yes Osamu.” He looked shocked.He has a child.”Yukio- I’m sorry…I had no idea you were-“ you stopped him in his tracks.”It’s fine Osamu.” He walked closer to you. “Yukio please I want to be in her life.” You looked shocked. “Really. You?” “I know it sounds unlike me Yukio but…Please. “Fine you can meet us tomorrow at the park.”

You were putting Hana in bed later that night. “Mommy who was that man talking to you earlier?” You sighed knowing it was time to come clean. “That was your daddy Hana.If you want to meet him we can go see him at the park tomorrow…”

Part two???

[yoongiaahh]

First Day - Me or Him

title: first day

series: me or him

pairing: yoongi x reader(f), namjoon x reader(f)

genre: love triangle ; rating m (18+)

summary: as you and your best friend start the first day of senior year you realize you have no classes together. you don't like people and stray away until someone catches your eye in class, not only that but you're assigned to sit next to each other. this is not how you wanted to kick off the first day of school… will feelings bloom? does your bestfriend approve?

note: hiiii this is my first fanfic so im really nervous lol. i decided on a series because as i was writing my mind was RACINGGG lmao i had so many ideas and didnt want it to be forever long. so i hope youll stay along for the ride. please let me know how you like it! im trying to work on my writing skills so any tips are appreciated :) as for the fic its gonna be spicy but itll be a slow burn so dont get your hopes up lol i want to give you a good taste of the characters before jumping in. i wanted to keep this chapter pretty short to begin so we can leave off with a little cliff hanger SORRY itll be worth it i promise! im also new to the tumblr writing scene and still figuring out the controls AGAIN tips appreciated! thank you <3

warnings: none YET

estimated total wc: 1.6k

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Your alarm is much louder than you're used to. Not that it matters, you had woken up a whole two hours before it went off.

It’s the first day of your senior year, you can hardly keep your smoothie down due to the rumbling pit of nervousness in your stomach. As you are pacing the room waiting for your brother to come bursting through the door you get a phone call. It's Namjoon, your best friend since middle school and suddenly you feel a little better about how the rest of your day is going to go knowing he’ll be right by your side.

“You ready? I'll be there in five.”

“As ready as I'll ever be Joonie.” You say with a smirk and major sarcasm wondering how you landed a friend so opposite from you.

“Perk up, it's our senior year… what could go wrong.”

“Yeah, yeah whatever see you soon.” Hanging up the phone quickly you grab your bag and run down stairs. You practically plowed through your brother as he was running up to make sure you were ready.

He’s pissed you can just tell by the way his eyes bolt directly to yours.

“Are you fucking kidding me, I had the courtesy of coming to get you and you repay me by messing up my hair.” His words come out like an avalanche as he immediately runs to fix what you supposedly messed up, yet it doesn't look like one strand fell out of place.

“Tae maybe instead of worrying about your appearance so much you can put more effort into school this year.” You scream through the house.

Your brother is a year below you and a complete douche. It comes across your mind more than ever how the two of you can be related. He's the king of his class, making new friends every day while you have had one friend for the entirety of the time you've been in this city. You’ve never really had the want or need to have anyone else than Joon, and you’re glad you havent had to share since he’s never kept another friend besides his gaming buddies.

Joon finally arrives at your driveway. As you're walking out the door you remind yourself there's only one more year of this hell you've been going through for the past three years. You atleast need to get through today, leave your worries for tomorrow and do your best.

The car ride to school lifts your spirits as you listen to Joon gawk about all the clubs he wants to enter and all the classes he signed himself up for. You’re happy for him but not at all what you are thinking about at the moment. Playing your favorite tunes through his amped speakers you reflect on the amazing summer you had and wish that it never had to end.

Gathering your things you and Joon walk up to the bulletin board to check what classes you got put into. Just as your morning got better all the nervousness you had earlier hits you like a truck. You don't have a single class together with him, which in the five years of knowing each other has never happened.

Immediately you both turn your heads in shock. You knew one day this would happen but why the first semester of your last year. You're sweating bullets not knowing how you'll get through today without him.

Trying to make you feel better, Joon offers to switch a class in hopes the teacher would approve.

“It’s alright Joonie, you already said how excited you were for the classes you picked and you got into all of them. I’ll manage somehow.” As soon as you say it you regret it. He would definitely switch if you had just agreed but you don't want to hold him back.

“Well we still have lunch together so just keep your cool till then.” His smile is the nausea pill you wish you had.

He wraps you up in a hug, letting you know everything will be alright. Once separated from the embrace you needed you make your way to your first class of the day.

The bell rings and students come piling in to take their seats before the teacher starts going over the plans for the semester. Writing everything in your notebook to keep your mind off this lonely day that has just started.

It’s not that you don't like school, you actually very much enjoy it and have always kept good grades. You’re just horrible at conversation and not much of a people person to begin with.

Joon and you had been paired together for a project way back when, which is how you and him ended up being friends. He is a very straightforward person so making conversation with him was never an issue, and you actually had quite a bit in common. He could clearly tell you were shy so to say the least he started most of the talk between you two. Once the project had been turned in everyone had returned back to their chosen seating to sit with their friends and you were surprised to see that he chose to continue sitting by you. Since that day you had been inseparable.

Lunch is finally here. Classes fled by quick since it was mostly introductions and receiving your sylbasses. Your backpack feeling like a brick from the textbooks you gathered you make your way to the cafeteria. You quickly find Joon and walk up to the line to get food.

“So how’d it go? Make any friends?” Joon snickers as he says the last part, knowing you all too well.

“Oh yeah I actually already have a new best friend so I guess i'll go sit with them.” Turning your head pretending to look for someone as Joon lets out a laugh. You spin around to smack his arm knowing he saw right through your mockery.

“As much as I would hate to be replaced, it wouldn't kill you to make a friend or atleast find someone else to talk to.” Nudging your shoulder as he says the words.

“I’m good with my small circle, thanks”

You both go back and forth with how the day has gone so far. He couldn't go on enough about how happy he is with his classes, which makes you forget the regret you had earlier about his offer.

The lunch bell goes off so you both clear your trays and head out to the hallways. Study hall is next for you so the nerves have suppressed as you know you can put your earbuds in and tune out the class. Joon gives you a wink and lets you know to meet back at his car when the day is over.

Heading to your locker to put the stack of textbooks you received away you get a text.

JoonieBug🪲🤍

Fighting❤️

Whatever loser❤️

You giggle as you put your phone back in your pocket and head to your class.

“Hello class, I hope your first day of senior year has been great! As you all know, study hall is your hour window to get caught up with your work or take a breather and relax before heading to the rest of your classes.” The teacher says much too loud for your liking. “I have put a seating chart together in hopes everyone can meet some fresh new faces. Please follow this chart as it is part of your participation grade.”

Great.

The last thing you wanted was to meet ‘fresh new faces’.

You grab your assigned seat and whip out your airpods in hopes that the person who's placed next to you takes the hint and stays to themself. Though to your surprise the bell had rung and the seat next to you was still vacant.

As you get out your syllabi to scan and send to your mother you hear commotion at the front of the class. You take out an airpod to see what is going on and you're taken aback when you see a boy with bleached blonde hair rolling his eyes as the teacher is complaining to him about being late. You don't know why but there are butterflies in your stomach as you look at him. Retracting your gaze he turns to meet your eyes. and the butterflies only get worse as you see him heading to the seat next to you.

He throws himself down in the seat and you can feel the heat in your cheeks rising. You don't know why your body is reacting this way.

In all of your other classes you had gotten a seat to yourself luckily but that wasn't the case here.

Hoping he doesn't notice your face looking like a cherry, you press play on your phone and get back to sending the photos to your mom.

“From the way you look you either really didn't want someone sitting here or you must be absolutely enthralled that I’m the person to sit here.”

You barely make out the words as you throw your head around to look at the all too cocky boy taking up the seat next to you.

“I-I don't know what youre talking about.” Turning away with a flushed face. Your mind racing wondering why he would even spout out those words.

“Yoongi”

“What?”

“My name silly, I’m Yoongi.”

“Oh okay”

The smirk on his face is absolutely annoying. You want to slap it right off his face.

“So do I get to know your name?” The smirk slowly turns into a grin as his eyebrow cocks up.

“Alright class, enjoy the rest of your day, I’ll see those bright faces tomorrow.” Your teacher says as the class ending bell goes off.

You have never gathered your things into your bag with such haste. Not realizing you left your notebook on the desk you throw the bag over your shoulder as you dart out the door to get anywhere but that classroom.

[rand0mfangurlstuff]

I'll Look After You - Part 5 - Bucky x Y/N

The next few minutes after their first kiss was filled with many more. Nose kisses, cheek kisses, forehead kisses, just about every inch of Y/Ns face had been kissed. She giggled, his mustache tickling her. 'I have to go now, I have to work remember?' she said between giggles. Bucky thought it was just about the sweetest sound he had ever heard,he never wanted her to stop, and he certainly did not want her to leave. He spoke to her between kisses. 'No (kiss) dont (kiss) leave me (kiss) yet (kiss) I'm not (kiss) done.' Y/N had never had someone treat her so adoringly before. She could get used to this. But for now she had to obtain some sense of decorum. She gently pushed him away by his shoulders until he was lying back on the bed. The look he gave her was absolutely sinful, until she backed away from him. Then suddenly he looked like a five year old who just had his lolly-pop stolen. 'I'm sorry. But I have to go get ready for work. I'll see you soon.' With a smile she blew him a kiss, smart enough not to get too close to him again incase he grabbed her and stopped her leaving again. She walked away as he smiled back at her 'I look forward to it.'

A few hours later, Bucky was bored. He had waited as patiently as he could, but Y/N still had not come back to his cublice. He knew she was near. He could hear her lovely voice as she spoke to other nurses and patients. He's certain he heard her walking with another soldier, helping him with his physical therapy. 'That's fantastic Lieutinant, you're doing a lot better since yesterday.' 'Thanks Nurse Y/N.' 'Lets try with me just holding one hand, you can do it.' He could imagine her sweet smile as she held the young Lieutinants hand, encouraging him to take more and more steps. Bucky again felt that little flame of jealousy. He knew she wasnt interested in the young soldier, but he was jealous that he got to hold her hand and see her smile while Bucky just lied there in his bed bored. When's my physical therapy. I need a lot of physical therapy. He thought to himself.

Another hour went by and still no Y/N. Bucky was giving up hope when his curtain was pulled back and there she was. She wasnt alone though, Dr. Andrews was with her. 'Good afternoon Major Egan.' the doctor reached to shake Bucky's hand. 'Afternoon Doc.' He looked to Y/N, she smiled while walking towards him. She stayed quiet as she checked his vitals while the doctor read Bucky's chart. Finally Y/N spoke 'Everything looks good Dr. Andrews.' 'Fantastic. How are you feeling Major?' the doctor asked still never looking up from the chart in his hands. 'I'm okay, ribs still hurtin' though' Bucky said. 'Well that will take some time. Usually 6-8 weeks until full recovery. But I'm happy with your progress. I see no reason to keep you here any longer.' The doctor finally looked up at Bucky with a smile. Before, this would have been great news to Bucky. But that was before her. Now the thought of being discharged was worse than crash-landing in occupied France. 'What? Really? I thought I'd still be here -' 'I'm not saying you can get back in a plane, but your typical Air Exec duties should be manageable. We will have you back in two weeks for a check up. Nurse, you'll get the discharge papers ready please?' 'Yes Dr. Andrews.' With that the doctor left.

Y/N was suprised. She thought Bucky would be delighted to get out of here. She was delighted for him. Sure she'd miss seeing him every day, but it was better for him and his mind to be away from the infirmary and the sick, injured and possibly dying. But the look on Bucky's face was not excitement. If anything, it was sadness. 'Isn't this good news? I thought you would be delighted. Yes its a shame you cant fly yet, but the weeks wont be long going by.' She figured that was what was bothering him, being at a desk. She tried to get him to look on the bright side. 'You can still work just take it easy.' 'It's not that I dont want to go back to work,' he said eyes boring into his hands. 'I just don't want to leave here.' 'Why on earth would you want to stay- oh.' she realised then. As he looked up at her with his baby blues, she realised he didn't want to leave her. He would willingly stay in this hellscape of an infirmary, just to spend more time with her. Nobody had ever liked her that much before.

He felt awfully vulnerable. He didn't like showing people he cared. 'I dont even feel it' being his frequent go to catchphrase. But he did feel it. He felt it for her. He needed her to know that he cared about her and didn't want to leave here. For fear of not seeing her enough, for fear that she would forget about him when he was no longer her patient, he wasnt sure. He just wanted to be near her. She made him happy, and happiness was in shrt supply these days. She walked over to the bed and sat on the edge. She placed her hand on his cheek and he leaned into the touch. 'It's a pity you want to stay in here, with you out of the infirmary and no longer my patient, I thought maybe you'd want to go out sometime. But if you dont want t-' 'Yes!' he almost screamed, making Y/N jump in suprise. He quickly composed himself. 'I suppose that would be nice, I could take you on a real date, not like that terrible excuse of a date you had with Croz.' Y/N lightly hit his shoulder. 'Be nice! And besides it wasnt really a date, not like he picked me up or brought flowers or anything. We were just two people at the same place at the same time having a drink together. Besides I'm almost certain he's married.' 'Well I'll still show you a better time than he ever could, no doubt about that doll.' With a teasing glint in her eye she smirked, kissed his cheek and got up and walked away. 'We'll see.'

When Bucky was discharged around an hour later, he wanted to come find Y/N again to discuss their date. Their date. Bucky still couldn't believe it. He was going to go on a date with Y/N. He found her at the nurses station. 'Hello there gorgeous.' he leaned against the desk. Another nurse standing near by heard him and started giggling. 'Hello Bucky, finally ready to get out of here?' she smiled while giving daggers to the giggling nurse. 'Not quite. We have to discuss our date first.' 'What date?' What date? Had he dreamed it all? Was he sicker than the doctors thought and his mind was running away from him? 'Didn't we say when I leave here we-' 'You never actually asked me out. You just said you could take me out. And said it would be better than a date with Harry. But you never actually asked.' She was teasing him. Making him work for it. He admired her for it, and he liked playing this cat and mouse with her. 'Well, I'm sure I could find the time in my schedule to take the lovely nurse who helped my recovery out to dinner.' he smiled his most seductive of smiles, making butterflies appear in her stomach. But she had to play it cool. 'I'm sure you're awfully busy Major, don't worry about me.' 'Well I do have some extra time on my hands now that I'm unable to fly.' 'Well I would have to check my schedule, and I'm often booked up far in advance.I work long hours and of course there is all the special attention I like to give to my patients.' Her smile was sinful. The way she looked up at him from her desk, pencil between her teeth, it was sending Bucky wild. 'Ah yes, your special assets are very important to the patients here I'm sure of it. Perhaps they would survive without you for one night though? Maybe Friday?' It was then her expression faltered to one of geniune dissapointment. 'I'm working the night shift on Friday.' 'I'll swap with you!' It was Nurse Giggles, had she been listening the whole time? 'I'll work your Friday night if you work my Saturday night? There was actually somewhere I was hoping to go on Saturday night so you would be doing me a favour.' Nurse Giggles was suddenly in Bucky's top five list of favourite people. 'Are you sure?' Y/N said. 'Absolutely!' Y/N turned to Bucky, seductive smirk back firmly on her face. 'It looks like my schedule is now clear Major. What did you have in mind?' 'You leave that to me doll. I'll pick you up at 1900.' With that he winked at her and walked out the door. He was going on a date. A date with Y/N. All he had to do was plan the date. He had to plan the most wonderful date in the history of dates. Bucky's hear sank to his behind and his stomach did several backflips. Oh shit.

[ghoulystay]

No.

Featuring: Simon "Ghost" Riley and Y/N (Female) Female reader.

Smut. Flashbacks. Memories. Bad news. Reunited.

18 and over!!

You hear a faint knock on the door. You look through the peep whole and see two soldiers standing there. Your heart began feeling heavy when you noticed what one of the soldiers was holding in his hands. His mask.

You don't know how to react. Your heart sunk a million miles. You try not to cry, but you know what they came to tell you. You open the door, and you feel like you've been holding your breath. The two soldiers look at you. "Ma'am, we're so sorry to break this news to you. Ghost is no longer." You feel your knees weak as you fall to the floor, tears streaming down your cheeks. The soldier kneels down to you, trying his best to reassure you. "Here's his mask, Ma'am, and also, this was found in his pocket." It was a necklace with a ring. You gave him the ring a year after you both began dating. He had also gifted you one that you wore on your finger. You take the mask and necklace from the soldier. Before the soldier was about to leave, you stopped him. "Wait, um.. how..." You couldn't finish the sentence. You didn't want to say it out loud. "He was KIA, Ma'am. I'm very sorry." You were in disbelief. You didn't want to believe any of it. "This can't be true!" You yelled out. The soldier looked back at you one last time before leaving. "Look, you're more than welcome to speak to the captain Ma'am." They both drove away from your home. You stand in the driveway, looking at the car drive away. You pull out your cellphone from your back pocket and scroll through the contacts. You couldn't help but feel disbelief but also anger, you couldn't understand it. You look at the contact and press the call button. Captain Price.

The next morning.

You meet up with Price at the base. You step into his office, and there he is, sitting at his desk waiting patiently for your arrival. You approach the desk. He stands. "Y/N, have a seat." You obliged. He sits back down on his chair. He waits for you to speak. "Please tell me it's not true." You're voice cracks a bit. He sighs. "Look y/n, I know this is a difficult thing to get through, but Ghost is, in fact, deceas..." y/n ubruptly stands, placing her hands on his desk. "Don't! He's not dead! I know he's not!" You screamed. Price stood up. "Y/N, stop. You have to accept it!" You fell back to your chair, burying your face in your hands. You look up to Price with tears in your eyes. "I just don't feel it, John, I know it sounds weird, but I dont, I can't..." You cry, tears streaming down your face. You notice John writing on a piece of paper, scribbling sentences, as he finishes, he folds it and hands it to you. "Not here, wait until you get home, okay?." He whispers. You place the note in your purse and stand. John speaks normally again. "I'm y/n the faster you accept this, the better." He winks and gives you a head bop to exit. You walk out of his office, and you notice everyone outside the office stare at you and whispers among them. You hurry out of the base to your car and drive back home.

At home. Late night.

You sat on your bed holding on to Ghosts mask and the necklace that he wore under his uniform. The note that Price gave you was lying beside you. You feel nervous, but you know you have to read it. You have to find out the truth. You need closure, but is it something you can really face?

You put his mask and necklace on the nightstand, and you reach for the note. You slowly unfold it, revealing John's message.

"He's not dead. He's in hiding. That's all I can tell you for now. Trust that you will both see each other again, just not now. I'll tell him we spoke. Please be patient. Destroy this note."

Your heart felt like it froze. You knew it. Your feelings were correct. You immediately stood up and ran to the bathroom. You begin ripping it up, and you throw the pieces in the toilet. You flush the remains. You walk back to your bedroom where your body collapses onto the bed. You had tears of relief in your eyes. You believed it. You knew, just knew it. You slowly drifted to sleep.

Later that night

As you were sleeping, a hand caresses your face slowly. You open your eyes in a panic before you think to scream, the hand covers your mouth. "Shhhh.. it's me, it's me, love." You reach over to the lamp to switch the light on, but he stops you. "No, it's better this way." He says, holding onto your hand. You embrace him in a tight hug. You feel tears in your eyes, an emotional reunion. You never thought it would come so fast, but you hoped. "I'm so confused, baby. What's going on?" You say still holding on to him. He takes a deep breath, and he pushes you away, holding your face in his hands. "I can't explain all that now. "All I can say is I had to fake a KIA. Someone we thought was friendly turned out to not be...." He looks down. "Who?" You ask him. He doesn't say right away. He continues looking down. You grab onto his face with your hands, and you feel confused and frustrated. You feel like you're being put in the dark. "Answer me, Simon! What the fuck is going on?!" He looks up at you. He wants to tell you, but you know deep down that he can only say so much, especially if he's ordered to do so. "I can't live here anymore. People think I'm gone, so I have to play this role correctly." You're taken aback. Almost speechless. You feel like you've been kicked in the gut, a knife piercing through your heart. "Whaa..t.... and what about....us.." You say faintly, tears streaming down your face. He holds you in his arms this time. "Come with me y/n, that's why I came here tonight. Pack and go. The men are waiting on standby for us." You couldn't believe it. You were happy you reunited but sad because that means leaving everything you and Ghost built behind to run away. "The choice is yours y/n." Ghost said. You push back from his embrace. "It'll be sad to leave our home here behind, but yes, of course I'll go with you, baby." As you get up to get ready to go, you notice he's not moving. "Simon? What's the matter?" You approach him standing inches from where he's sitting. He looks up at you, his hands grab your waist. "How about we fuck one last time in our soon to be old home, here on our soon to be bed?" You're puzzled, Ghost thinking of sex was never surprising but given the circumstance at the moment your shocked. "Are you sure? What about the men, I thought you said they were waiting for us." Ghost releases you as he stands up he takes his shirt off, and he pulls you closer to him. "They can wait." His lips crash to yours, tongues dancing in each other's mouths. You both undress each other and fall to the bed. Bodies tangled up with each other. He begins spreading your legs open with his legs. He inserts inside of you, not holding back. You moan out loud. "Oh... Simon..." Your nails going deep in his back. He holds your legs up to his shoulders, and his thrusts become harder and rougher. Your moans get louder. "I'm gonna... Cum... ooooh..." His hand finds your neck as he continues thrusting faster and deeper. "Say my name, love.. scream it..." Your head goes back, you scream so loud it echos in the room. "FUCK!!! SIMON!!!!" You both climax together.

Afterwards

You're all packed and ready. You head downstairs and see Ghost waiting patiently by the front door. He takes your suitcase from you. "Ready, baby?" He asks. You look back at your home one last time, and you take a deep breath. "Yeah, as long as I'm with you, Simon." He takes your hand and kisses your knuckles. "I'm nothing without you, y/n." He says. you both begin walking down the street. You see a dark vehicle with tinted windows parked by the sidewalk. You both climb into the back of the vehicle. You're surprised to see the two men sitting in the front seats. Captain Price on the driver side and Soap in the passenger side. Soap sits up, turning to you and Ghost. "About damn time you two, could hear you loud and clear on the ear piece, hahaha." You blush as you look at Ghosts direction he takes your hand. "Don't be jealous, mate." Ghost responded. They both laughed. Captain Price turns the engine on and drives off. "Alright, kiddies, let's get you both outta here." He says. You rest your head on Ghosts shoulder, and he kisses the top of your head. "Rest, lovie, we have all the time. We're together now." Your eyes become heavy, you drift off to sleep. Nothing or nobody will ever get in the way of you and Ghost. You're where you're meant to be, where you belong. With him. With Simon.

The End.

[lunar-lair]

every time i think of system jason i think about. well first i think about how jason todd is a separate alter but jason todd is also the person because thats the name they own but the main host for like 20 years goes by jason and thats his name and. anyways. next i think about the ways he dissociates. but THEN i think about the littles/teens/even some adults that will only respond to robin or their name, and if they dont have a name, just robin, and maybe jason

sometimes its just a game of firing off names. some of them only respond to red hood, some of them respond to jason todd in full specifically, some of them respond to peter. theyre bad at names and in the early days its hard to figure out whos who (both in the system and out), too, so sometimes theyll just stare at whoevers talking to them with squinted eyes until they say a name they recognize as their own. some of them only respond to Specific Nicknames, some of them love people besides dick and bruce and alfred (and sometimes damian and tim and steph, but not duke, or...you get the picture) because they all love their family, even if they dont know them, but they dont Know Them. and some of them only respond to jaylad or jaybird or little bird, some of the older ones only respond to damian. its definitely a trial and error kind of thing. usually they can interact with everyone just fine, but some days they find jason in the kitchen and when tim tries to talk to him he looks away and creeps into a corner of the kitchen and they have to find dick and then bruce (bad choice) and then damian. its the trauma conversation but its also the memory conversation and the 'who are you to yourself and who do people know you as' conversation. i have a lot of thoughts abt jason w osdd/did (preferably did that sounds more like him) it does things to my brain. this post was supposed to be abt alters that respond to robin and then i just. kept talking. oops

oh my god the thought i just had. some of the littles dont know any of them and just hole themselves away in the library and everyones like 'ok has anyone seen jason he skittered off earlier and he looked fucking Scared we are Worried' but they learned early on that looking for him is a Bad Idea because hell get scared. so they just have to wait until jason texts one of them or smth like 'bad news weve got a new kid and they dont know any of you. good news we know what they respond to. bad news its a nickname from our mom most of us cant bear to hear. good news were getting them a name. bad news we cant leave the library yet. were alive though' and thats all they have to go off until he trudges out of the library three hours later asking what the hell happened because the little and a protector had a whole Convo then threw jason back in front to fend for himself

ok thats it this time i think. for real this time. anyways i have thoughts abt system jason if you have any queries please ask them i would love to talk abt him

[vashsscoreboardofpain]

WELCOME BACK SPORTS FANS >:]

It has been almost a month since we started this season of sports dear audience; 98 Vash has giving it all in the stage called No Mans Land, but today its the last day he competes. Unlike stampede's vash, his story ends here. He will join the bench after today.

Everyone please cheer for the contestant and the legacy he's about to leave in the Score Board of Pain, but also please cheer for our for the great people/person running @trigun98watchparty They have been an avid fan of sports this season and they organized the amazing watch party.

Lets begin with the last round, episode 26:

The contestant arrives to the place of his final battle. He looks at his brother in the eye and in that moments he hits the audience with a flashback sequence. It seems like the contestant wants to go out with a bang! He remembers the moment they crashed in the new planet. The memories of the contestant being forced to follow knives make the audience (and the suffering division) really sad.

Thanks to the flashbacks, the contestant scores 1 "action" point BY ALMOST KILLING KNIVES WHEN THEY WERE YOUNGER. It seems like the Cain instinct took over the contestant for a few minutes, but then he gave up. The contestant keeps moving through the flashbacks, he keeps moving and hits 1 "yikes statement" point for saying "its hard to be alone, I dont want to be alone...someone" while waiting for his brother for a year. But this flashbacks isnt over yet. The contestant hits another "action" point when he doesnt defend himself after knives says he is hopeless on his own. But wait! it seems like vash threw knives onto the floor to stop him. The brothers struggle and fight. And is in that moment dear audience, that vash not only chooses the path he wants to take in life, but he also hits 1 "traumatizing event" point when he shoots knives. We must remember that this is 1) the first time he has shot at someone and 2) this is the first time he has wounded knives in a serious way. The contestant is distressed by what he did.

He runs and presents us with another flashback, and just like that he gets 1 "bad event" point for almost dying in the desert, plus a good old "action" point for calling out to rem while fainting. The people of seeds help him get on his feet and find someone related to rem. However, the good news dont last. The contestant puts himself in position and when visiting the man related to rem he hits another "traumatizing event" point. Knives killed the man before they could talk.

After that, the flashbacks of people we have seen and points already gathered start to play out. The contestant thinks about this, feel every moment of the season and gathers strength for his next move.

We return to the present. Before anyone can say anything the contestant moves and strikes 1 "bad event" point thanks to his battle with Knives. The brothers fight once again but now theyre basically matched. BUT WAIT, in the middle of the fight knives gets the upper hand and now wants to hit the contestant with his own angel arm. The contestant hits 1 "bad event" point for having the most powerful weapon ever being pointed at him, but also because the weapon gives him flashbacks of the many lives destroyed because of it, lives that he thinks he ended. 98 Vash keeps fighting knives with his own power, but after using the angel arm he collapses. Just like that the contestant is cornered again and gets 1 "bad event" point thanks to knives, who is shoots at him until he collapses again. The contestant aims but he has run out out of bullets. He hits 1 "bad event" point for getting hit in the face, but it is in that moment when HE HEARS A VOICE DEAR AUDIENCE. HE HEARS THE VOICE OF WOLFWOOD AND THAT REMINDS HIM THE PUNISHER IS RIGHT THERE READY TO BE USED. HE SHOOTS KNIVES AND TAKES CONTROL! HE DID IT! HE HAS WON THE BATTLE THANKS TO THE MVP ON THE OTHER SIDE.

THE AUDIENCE GOES WILD AND EXCITED. It has been almost a month but the contestant has finally done it- wait a moment. He is doing something. The contestant ends the sports season not with a point, but with forgiveness. He cures his brother and carries him, ready to start a new life.

AND DEAR AUDIENCE THAT WAS THE AMAZING SPORTS SEASON BY OUR CONTESTANT 98 VASH! IT HAS BEEN A FUN JOURNEY. The contestant bows to the audience as they cheer for him. He can finally relax and see how the other contestants will do in the future.

On his last round the contestant hit 11 points, making his official total 261 points! He did not reach 300 but he is still cementing a new record and a legacy in the world of sports. He has truly surpassed Stampede season 1. What a beautiful performance 98 Vash, we all hope you stay around to see the final contestant of the year.

That is all for this season sports fans! We can't wait to see you on the next season in May: Trimax season.

HOORAY FOR SPORTS.

[midnight-talescape]

Game (707 x Reader)

Kinktober day 12: Toys

I didn't know I can work this fast, but 7 my beloved. Also by this point you can tell my brain is not functioning with the character, it's been too long since I indulge myself in fanfic, sadly.

Warning: toys, overstimulation, vanderwood almost walked in lol, this is 100 percent ooc, etc, etc you get the point not for kid

Genre: filthy filthy smut

｡･ﾟ･｡+☆+｡･ﾟ･｡+☆+｡･ﾟ･｡+☆+｡･ﾟ･｡+☆+｡･ﾟ･｡+☆+｡･ﾟ･｡+☆+｡･ﾟ･｡+☆+｡･ﾟ･｡

You stretched your back as you closed the chatlog. Finally ready to start on 7's route after finishing all the other ending.

Who would have known the personality of a redheaded hacker, was gonna beat your bias to silver hair red eye character. After surfing online about how 7 loved you in every route, you decided to finish all the ending before finishing his ending acting it like a true ending.

What can you say, a jokester hiding his mass of trauma under a cheery mask was a sure way to your heart.

You quickly boot up a new saved file ready to finally finished the last route to your favorite character.

In the next few day you attune attentively to the game, waking up at 3am to catch up on all the chat log not missing a single one (seriously who put their chat at 3am, do the character not sleep?)

When you started knowing something weird happening in the game. At first it was weird chat option in message that you have never seen before (You would know, you replayed Jumin's route multiple time) Shaking it off as just some easter egg you continued the game and finally begin 7 route.

Everything seems normal at first, until you started seeing log that wasn't there before, phone call from 7 happen way more often.

You shake it off, thinking it was just the new update.

Until one day you woke up and noticed you are no longer in your room, instead you were tied to a bed with a mouth gag in your mouth.

Just as you was about to struggle, as confused as you were. You figured you might want to get out first. You heard a footstep walking toward you, you looked up to look at your kidnapper.

You blinked slowly as you try to comprehend who your seeing.

7 kneeled down to the bed and removed the mouth gag from you.

You poked out your tongue trying to take in more air, also it was just uncomfortable to have something in your mouth.

7 look at you and said cheerfully,

"Hello, (Y/N) your finally here, I have been been so excited to meet you,"

"What? Am I hallucinating?"

7 ruffled your hair,

"Of course not, I was just tired of seeing you from the screen so I decided to take matter into my own hand and bring you here."

You motioned to your tied up hand and leg with your face,

"So you kidnapped me and tied me to a bed with a mouth gag, like some sort of weird kinktober fantasy?"

"Yeah,"

You sigh, fully accepting your fate. After all this is either some really weird hallucinating dream from you waking up at 3am or you have finally gone to another world. Honestly by this point you dont really care.

"You know me a bit too well,"

7 shrugged with a knowing grin,

"What can I say I have been looking through your search history,"

You froze and then closed your eye defeated,

"Dear god, you know I will have to kill the witness, right,"

He hold a hand to his chest faking a gasp,

"Is that all it takes for you to hurt me?"

"Okay maybe not, can you please let me go,"

7 poked your cheek,

"Nope, I want you here (Y/N). I love you, I have been watching you for years, ever since you first downloaded the game. I have waited long enough, I want you,"

"Wait what about my family?"

7 clapped his hand together, looking real fucking proud of himself,

"It was a bit hard, even for a genius like me. But I have managed to combined the world in a few day we will be together forever."

Hearing his answer, you thought for a moment before saying,

"Okay, then I'm down. Are you gonna fuck me or not,"

"What?"

"7 my beloved, you just fucking kidnapped me out of my bed tied me up and put a mouth gag in my mouth. I dont know how to tell you this, but I just read a bunch of kinktober fic might as well act out a erotic fic, "

7 give you a crazed grin,

"Dear god, I really found the best and craziest person ever,'

"What can I say, we are similar in the worst way possible, there's a reason you're my favorite character,"

"You mean other then I'm hot and funny and smart and rich and..."

You rolled your eye as he go on and on,

"Yes, yes I get it, Mr. Lucky Number, you're the cutest."

With a grin he tilt down to kiss you, after a few minute he separate with a strand of saliva connecting you guys. He put his forehead on yours and begin to undress you.

Just as you guys were about to begin to get rid of years worth of love and touch deprived cause horniness, you guys froze when you heard someone knocking on the door.

"Motherf-"

7 quiet you down before yelling that he will open the door soon,

"Saeyoung, if your going to leave at least untie me,"

With a sadistic grin, and a bad feeling up your spine 7 turn around to get something,

"Wha-"

You was shut up when 7 retied the mouth gag around your mouth. You suddenly started shivering when you see him pull out a bunch of what you're assuming is sex toy.

You pulled on the bondage around your arm again, 7 gave you slapped on your breast, shutting you up with the stinging from your breast,

"Quiet, kitten. I can't have you all bored and lonely here can I? I will leave you with some fun,"

With that he quickly clipped a few clamp onto your nipple. He hold up a vibrator to show you, with a grin on his face. Seeing it, the realization that this is really happening you tried to back away. Pretty convinced that it's not gonna fit and that you are in fact not ready to get fucked.

"It's too late to back out now, kitten."

With that 7 quickly lubed it up, and slowly pushed it into your fold. Tear stained your eye, as you body tighten and tried to pushed the intruder out of your body. But all you successfully did was take it deeper into you.

Suddenly you arched your back when the knocking come again, and 7's hand slipped and pushed the entire thing inside you.

"Luciel open the fucking door!"

"Calm down, Mary i'm coming do you want to see me naked?"

Turning around he wiped away your tear,

"Good girl, just take in one more, hmmmm. Be a good girl for daddy," with that he pulled out a cat tail butt plug,

You look at him at wide eye,

'How many of these do you have?'

"I was quite excited to have you here, so I brought some toys," with that he moved your ass up before plugging it into you and laying you down again,

7 give you a kissed on your forehead before locking the door and walking out.

You slow your breath trying to relax your body against the many thing inside your body. Just as you was starting to get use to it, you suddenly arched your back up, when all the vibrator all started vibrating.

You pant and moan, saliva dripping down your chin. Tears streaming down your body as your body tried to get use to the vibrating. But every time you get use to it the frequency change causing you to orgasm again

If you could still think you would have probably swear the fucked out of 7, but you can't. Too sensitive and tied up to think.

When the door open again, you looked up with teary eye.

7 looked down at your flushed up body, damp with sweat and your juice. The cat tail now damped and hard under you. Your entire body trembling from your multiple orgasm.

He removed the mouth gag and with a shit eating grin said,

"Seems like you had fun when I was gone, kitty,"

"F-Fuck you..." you panted out,

"With pleasure,"

7 removed the vibrator out of you (After slipping a few time and causing you to swear) and pushed his hard member into your wet fold.

"F-fuck..." you swear as you felt your body taking in something far bigger the the vibrator,

"You feel so tight, kitten. I can't wait to fucking break you," with that he started to thrust into you

You hanged onto him desperately as you felt him going in and out of you. The cat tail sticking on you, wet from your juice and sweat. You let out wail as he pounded into you faster and he pulled on your clamp.

Just as your mind blurred and you were about to collapse you felt him gripped your waist tightly as he came inside you.

Panting slightly he pulled out, before covering your body with his blanket and cuddle you.

"T-take out the thing, you dick,"

"Nope staying in, Kitten"

"You-"

"Be quiet, love. Before I go another round,"

With that you quickly shut up and went to sleep.

[princesssmars]

Could you do a josh x reader x matt poly?

Whether that be just what it's like dating them, how they go together, or just a random fic. I just live them, please.

perfectly unconventional

some josh x reader x matt hcs

contains : fluff, poly stuff ofc, angst

a/n : im. so sorry it took me so long to make this anon 💀 i dont dislike any of the UD characters but matt and josh werent high up on my list so its cool to focus on them for this. hope yall enjoy :)

.

.

.

you knew josh first, having met him and his friends in middle school thanks to being on the same soccer team as sam and beth.

when you met josh you thought he was a bit weird becuase of him being rather...eccentric, but he quickly warmed up to you when he saw how well you got along with his sister. after that it was all long laughs and numerous hangouts.

eventually your fondness for each other develops into a mutual crush on the other, but you both dont want to ruin what you have so it remains unsaid.

eventually the time for the annual blackwood pines trip comes along and you (and your entire friend group at this point) are hoping josh will make a move or youll have to.

but things were differnt this year with the new addition to the friend group in the form of matt taylor, resident jock next door.

you had seen him around school before, never really talking to him minus the few interactions when hed ask you for help on a question in english and you to him in math.

now he and mike were both on the football team, so he introduced him to everyone and josh said he could tag along on the trip after knowing him for a few months.

you had to admit that he was super cute, not just in the face but in his actions as well. deapite starting to become close friends with nearly everyone, he still was a bit reserved and polite, mostly keeping to himself, mike, josh, jess, and you.

on the way up to the lodge you walked beside him, succesfully getting him to open up to you and start talking more about himself and his interests, finding you have more in common than you thought.

the fleeting moments you have with him during the trip make you confused, you still have strong feelings for josh but being around matt makes your heart flutter...

when you tell jess this one night in your room she says "maybe you just like both of them" like its the easiest thing in the world.

you know shes right, but you dont know what to do. do you just go up to the both of them and ask if theyre ok all dating???

you stew over this until the next morning, finding most of your friends gone and only a sticky note left on the fridge saying "(wo)man up". great.

while fixing yourself up some breakfast, josh and matt both join you after coming from upstairs. they ask where everyone is, following the direction of your pointed eyes to the note, josh laughing and matt looking bewildered.

"what does...what do you think it means?" he asks, reverting back to his shy state and looking between you and josh.

josh laughs, shaking his head. "it means they want me and yn to ask each other out already."

his words shock you, causing you to hit him with a handtowel, making him yelp. "youre telling me you already knew i liked you!? and you like me and still havent done anything!? oh youre such an asshole..."

"hey! i just didnt wanna rush it and mess anything up, besides i thought you were still getting over your oh so dramatic breakup with tyler-"

"oh dont act like you didnt know i was only dating him to make you jealous-"

"wait...you two...already like each other?"

the sound of matts quiet voice boots the two of you from your unserious argument, turning to look at the brown skinned boy who looks so dejected it makes your heart ache.

"i just thought that with all those conversations we had when staying up together that we... you know what, nevermind." he starts to turn away out of embarrassment before both you and josh grab his arms, pulling him back to you.

he looks surprised, his mouth moving to start asking what youre doing before you cut him off.

"matt, i have had feelings for josh for a long time now, yes. but i can also say this trip made me see you in a different light. youre...sweet and caring, and i know i have feelings for you as well. i know its..not the most normal situation in the world, but i know that i want to be with the both of you."

josh and matt are quiet for a few moments, which definitely doesnt help your nerves. but a smile is put on your face when josh wraps his arms around the both of you, pulling you both in for a hug.

"dont worry, i like you guys too. pretty easy since youre both so cute." he teases, making matt giggle with you.

matt relaxes, hugging the both of you tighter. "yeah. yeah, i think we can make this work."

and so there the three of you stood, in the kitchen of this giant, cold lodge all locked in embrace.

but in your head, you think youve never felt warmer.

.

.

.

i wrote all of this in a day bc again anon im so sorry i let this sit in my inbox for so long 😭 i hope yall liked this little thing and thanks for reading <3

[khaleesiofalicante]

“It’s my dad!” Max grins widely, still hanging upside down. “And some other guy.”

Don’t cry.

Don’t cry.

Don’t cry.

“Of course. Of course. We don’t want the good people of New York thinking you are a negligent father,” Max nods seriously and then side-eyes Magnus. “But then again, next to this one, you look like the father of the year.

He sees Rafael’s bike parked outside.

No. No.

Magnus runs inside.

“That’s right!” he hears Max yell after him. “Run to your precious golden boy!”

“You don’t get to fucking tell me what to do,” Max shakes his head. “You are not my father.”

“Max. Please,” Rafael says softly. “You don’t want bapak to get hurt again, right? Please. Please. Stop. Bapak doesn’t deserve this. I know it hurts. But stop. Please.”

“You sure you’re straight, Rafe?” Max snorts. “You’re sucking his dick pretty hard right now.”

“Max!” Alec yells. “Stop it. Magnus has-”

"The two of you are fucking pathetic," Max snorts. "Magnus this. Bapak that. Have some fucking self-esteem."

Rafael moves forward. But Alec pulls him back by the arm.

"Don't," Alec tells their oldest and then looks at Max. "One more word out of you and-"

"And what?" Max crosses his arms.

"Max," Magnus intervenes. "If you are mad at me, just be mad at me. Don't take it out on Alec and Rafael."

"You can't help it, can you?" Max asks with a grin. "You always have to tell people what to do. Because you think you're better than the rest of you. Guess what, bapak? You are the weak link in this family."

“That’s what I thought,” Max laughs out loud. “Leave. That’s all you know. Leave. You fucking coward.”

“And what you did today?” Magnus shakes his head. “I’ve never been disappointed in you.”

He thinks of the billboard again.

His face.

The words ‘Go Kill Yourself’ written across his eyes.

Magnus swallows.

“Do you have no idea what could have happened if the wrong person had seen the message at the wrong time?” Magnus asks hoarsely. “Do you have no idea how much it hurt me to see my son act like this?”

“Yeah. Maybe it’s just you,” Max chuckles. “Maybe it’s a good thing. Because now dad can be with someone who actually fucking loves him.”

Rafael slips into the couch and buries his face in his hands.

Okay. I'm done. I've been with Rafe since the first time I read this fic. Max is very selfish.

And I really tried (both times I read this fic), but I just can't take it anymore. I tried to ignore all your horrible and unfortunate comments in both timelines but I have again reached my limit in the same chapter in which I reached my limit last time.

Reminds me of my little brother. They live in their own world and with their own pain. And people have to be able to live through their pain and that is their right, but that doesn't mean they have the right to everything. He closes himself in his pain and doesn't care how bad others have it. You could be suffering and not make it harder for others.

I really try to be understanding with Max but he pokes and pokes and pokes until he makes you explode. What he does is not right. And they spoil him for it, and so he will never learn

It reminds me of that scene with Tessa and Jem where they are talking about Will and she wonders what good they are doing to Will if they always forgive him for everything he says or does.

I'm glad that Magnus was able to set his limit to stop Max from continuing to advance, because we don't know if he would have stopped. Sometimes children also behave toxically towards their parents.

I don't think Max is the devil por being selfish, i want to be clear. I don't hate him, i dont have 15 years old. I understand this is complicated. But we have to admit that he has a selfishness problem that he must learn to deal with. That doesn’t make him a bad person, but hus selfishness makes him doing bad things and he should know where is the line, not waiting to others to draw it

And Magnus was absolutely right to make him think about what would have happened if someone read that sign at the wrong time. How he doesn't think about how things affect others. How Max doesn't think. It's a horrible thing to say, regardless of whether he went against his bapak. Someone else could have read it, and seen it as a sign

Also, poor Rafael. I get it so much, the more Max talked, the more Rafe became afraid that Max would end up triggering Magnus. And as a person who ends up imagining the worst in stressful situations, I know what must have been going through Rafe's head at that moment

I think it's spot on and this was the whole point.

This was Max's struggle in tlnd. His arc, if you will. Everyone had their own kind of 'toxic' habit to overcome whether it was Magnus letting people walk all over him and keep sacrificing himself for love, whether it was Alec's stubbornness to fix things and just keep trying even if it makes things worse, Rafael's inability to set boundaries and Max's selfishness.

The story wouldn't work, let's say, if Max had Arthur's personality. He had to be who he is for the story to move. But I had to be careful because this version of Max can't only exist in tlnd. So, you do see this reckleness and selfishness in other fics, but manifesting in different ways and impacting him and others around him in different ways.

It's very hard to read, especially if you relate to Rafael a lot, but it was incredible to write :)

[bsotted]

I have a lukewarm take I’m walking to the microwave to see what happens pls weigh in

When will it be appropriate to suggest we have to pick a new litmus test for basic human decency because I don’t know if putting away the grocery cart you’re done with it should be it anymore..

WAIT DONT GO YET PLWASE HEAR ME OUT PLEASE I PUT AWAY MY CART I DO!!

IM JUST ASKING ONLY ASKING

Because the new grocery carts have an anti-theft feature on them to try to make it harder to steal them and at a seemingly arbitrary point in the parking lot the wheels literally lock… is it just because I live in Seattle now and the housing crisis is just that out of control here compared to other cities?

I want to know because christ alive grocery stores are starting to make it hard as fuck to keep up the universal I’m Not An Asshole baseline behavior.

Also what’s the intention? For stores that have these, are we literally supposed to just leave the cart next to the car, taking up a whole parking space after you drive off, until some underpaid 16 year old in a hi-vis vest in the rain has time to come by with a key to unlock the wheels?? Is that the new normal?

Because if it is god damn we need a new litmus test for “are you the kind of person who does the right thing even if nobody is watching, even if inconvenient, even for no recognition or reward, and also in the absence of any negative consequence” because it was so USEFUL for that and putting the cart away is dead and dying. Ol girl is bleeding out in the Kroger parking lot. Literally.

A ywy is this just something I’m confronting constantly because I live in a city with a wildly disproportionate unhoused population?

By the way please feel free to use that “other” option to cast a “Sometimes” or “none of the above” or “misc nuance” vote and expand on that in the notes I am invested in this conversation and will be circling back to read what ppl say